


trust me and follow me

by junebeam



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)
Genre: Anal Sex, BDSM, Biting, Blood Kink, Blood Play, Boot Harness, Bruising, Caning, Co-Topping, D/s, Diary Reading, Dress Up, Flogging, Kink Discovery, Light Bondage, Light Chastity Play, Light Humiliation/Name-Calling, Light Sadism, M/M, Makeup, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Public Humiliation, Rope Bondage, Secondhand descriptions of consensual violent sex, boundary pushing in consensual sex (see: biting), hooking up because our partners are busy hooking up without us, kink coaching, play piercing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-01-26 19:10:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 60,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junebeam/pseuds/junebeam
Summary: Since the beginning, Byeongkwan’s been running a finely-calibrated BDSM system with Junhee at its center.  As Under Cover promotions wind down, Yuchan starts learning something about himself.
Relationships: Kang Yuchan | Chan & Kim Byeongkwan, Kang Yuchan | Chan/Kim Byeongkwan/Park Junhee | Jun, Kang Yuchan | Chan/Lee Donghun, Kang Yuchan | Chan/Park Junhee | Jun, Kim Byeongkwan/Kim Sehyoon | Wow, Kim Byeongkwan/Park Junhee | Jun, Kim Sehyoon | Wow & Lee Donghun, Kim Sehyoon | Wow/Lee Donghun, Kim Sehyoon | Wow/Park Junhee | Jun
Comments: 33
Kudos: 105





	1. movie night

**Author's Note:**

> welcome! if this seems up your alley but too long, please check out [this chapter guide](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67972630)! (content warnings can also be found there)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junhee is the leader of A.C.E. KBK is the leader of Junhee’s dick.

The dorm lulls when Junhee gets in. They watch him slam the door shut behind him with a twist of his hip, punt his bag into the living room, whirl a little, and toss his keychain with a perfect arc into the sink before taking off his shoes. He’s wearing skinny jeans that fit him just too low with a buttoned shirt that strains to tuck into them.

“His entrance is good today,” says Donghun. Sehyoon and Yuchan grin at each other. The three of them are entangled on the sofa, illuminated only by the idle blur of the TV. Yuchan has a plastic snack bowl in his lap and locks the hyungs together with his limbs, elbows on Donghun’s thighs, long legs spilling over onto Sehyoon.

Junhee blares his greeting like a foghorn.

“I’m home!!”

They mumble at him. Yuchan gnaws a piece of his snack and looks sidelong at Donghun. A blush rises in his nose when Jun approaches.

Junhee puts his elbows on the back of the sofa. He’s greeted by the creak of broken springs and Sehyoon’s steadying hand at his wrist.

“What on earth are you eating, Kang Yuchan?”

“Oh, this? Ramen.” He indicates politely with his little finger, first the crumbling, broken biscuits of dried noodles, then the mound of orange sauce streaking across the side of the bowl. “And this really good sweet mustard I found. It was way in the back of the refrigerator—did you know we had this?”

Jun balks.

“Ah, seriously? You shouldn’t eat that! You’ll feel so sick later.”

Donghun defends Yuchan with arms wrapped around him.

“Such a hard day, and there’s no other food,” he says, saddening his eyes at Junhee. “You want the kid to starve?” Yuchan elbows him.

“I’ll see if we can have groceries tomorrow. Seriously, you guys, TV? Isn’t it late?” 

Junhee chides mechanically, but his heart isn’t in it. He rubs his neck under his shirt, as if relieving something digging into the muscle there.

“_It’s movie night,_” sings Sehyoon. “_Mo-vie night!_ We’re going to watch…hmm…to watch…what was it…?”

“Something loud and long,” says Donghun with a perfect, angelically smug face.

Junhee stares at him.

“_Akira!_” Yuchan shouts, almost sending his bowl of ramen crackers flying. “_Akira_, right? _Ak...Akira_?”

Sehyoon boots back up.

“Yes, that’s the one. I heard it’s cool.”

“Isn’t it old?”

“It’s cyberpunk,” says Sehyoon. And then, rapturously, he adds, “It has motorcycles.”

“Ah.” Junhee smiles. He toys with his earring. “Where's Byeongkwan?”

A familiar labored silence switches on in the apartment like an electric hum, the warm-cheeked exchange of non-glances over Junhee’s lowered head.

Movie nights can be like this at first. They’re still waiting for it to start.

It starts when Byeongkwan appears at the edge of the room. Unlike the others, he’s dressed and made up—reflectively clean boots and badges, scavenged Under Cover regalia pinned to jeans and a tank top of his own. It’s the TV light across the blingy fake medals that gives him away.

He leans at the corner, the back of his skull and sole of his boot resting rudely on the wall. His chin points straight ahead and he watches through his lashes. The screen alternates opening credits with a blare of ugly red.

Jun doesn’t look behind him, but when he sees the others turn their heads, he sinks between his shoulders. He puts more weight on his elbows than his legs, and the sofa creaks again while Sehyoon’s hand tightens on his wrist, keeping him right there.

“Are you tired, hyung?” asks Yuchan. He misses nonchalant by an inch.

Sehyoon smiles at Yuchan. His free hand twitches as if to rise in a quieting motion.

“Junhee-ya? Did you have the kind of day you wanted?”

Junhee has become uncommonly quiet, loose-limbed. His small, bright body droops like a dragonfly fallen in water. 

Donghun reaches back and helps Sehyoon steady him.

Through the TV speakers, reverberating drums begin to strike, cavernous and uneven.

“Ah…” Jun murmurs. “Not everything went well…”

A footstep stamps the floor, and then another.

“Your dancing got low energy by the end of the day,” says Sehyoon. “Not bad, but for how much you practice…shouldn’t it be better?”

“He got impatient with the director, too,” offers Donghun. “He wouldn’t listen. She had to scold him fiercely—even I was scared. Junhee-ya…don’t worry us like that!”

“But you liked it, didn’t you?” 

Byeongkwan speaks quietly at Junhee’s shoulder, barely audible over the movie sounds. Junhee startles then goes slack as a silk ribbon. He grins with all his teeth and bends his head down into the sofa, flinging one hand out and balling the other at his collarbone—but Byeongkwan grabs him. Byeongkwan’s arms are strong; he supports almost all of Jun’s weight, despite being smaller, despite Jun’s squirming, and forces him to straighten with a sort of nelson hold. The hyungs let go.

A muscle can be seen fluttering in Junhee’s stomach. His head wobbles and he smiles apologetically. Byeongkwan snarls into his neck.

“You messed up on purpose, didn’t you?” 

_Yes,_ Junhee breathes. His eyelids sag, but his lip tugs upward, the beginning of a guilty giggle.

“That’s our Junhee”—Byeongkwan pulls Jun against him so hard that they both stagger— “always desperate for attention…”

Yuchan covers his mouth faintly, bug-eyed, unable to control himself. Donghun takes Yuchan’s hand down from his face and tucks in his fingers, forming a gentle fist in his lap. _Shh._

“Our leader should be embarrassed,” Byeongkwan continues. “He’s so needy. A team to take care of and he only thinks of himself.”

Jun jerks his elbow suddenly in a feigned attempt to break free. Byeongkwan wrestles him backward until his spine arches and his foot slips forward. Jun giggles openly, already gasping.

“Yeah?” he says “What are you gonna d—?”

Byeongkwan half drops, half tackles Jun onto all fours. Yuchan’s hand flies back to his mouth. Junhee rocks in place, eyes closed, ducking down a grin.

“What am I going to do?” Byeongkwan barks to Junhee’s bowed back. He can’t help but smirk at himself; he compensates with an imperiously raised eyebrow.

Music accompanies roaring engines, breaking glass.

“Get lost, kids,” says Donghun. “Movie’s starting.” Sehyoon laughs.

Byeongkwan seizes Junhee’s shirt and pulls.

Junhee rises just enough to not be dragged. He grips Byeongkwan’s wrist to lessen the strain on his shirt and crawls where he is led. His hair falls over his eyes; his smile gives way to concentration for a moment, then flickers back into place.

The movie gets louder. Yelling, gunshots, screeching tires blot out the sound of Byeongkwan hauling Junhee to their bedroom. Donghun guides Yuchan’s swiveled head back toward the screen.

The door slams shut.

  
On the other side of it, Junhee falls onto his back, Adam’s apple jutting at the ceiling. 

The room is a pantry-sized masterpiece. The floor where Junhee lies is covered in a rose-colored shag rug deep enough to swallow him. Dark curtains that stay rolled up like sails during the day are let down to obscure the plaster walls; the bare bulbs of half a dozen mismatched lamps emit a hot and muddled light all around the perimeter. A makeup collection’s tubes and compacts are swept into the corner of the little desk so other things can occupy its surface and its chair: things Byeongkwan usually keeps secret in a shoe organizer slung inside the closet. A large, smudged mirror has been lifted down to lean against the far wall, facing the door; it dimly reflects Byeongkwan’s booted feet on either side of Junhee’s buckled body.

Jun bends his leg between Byeongkwan and his vulnerable waist. He writhes a little, breathless, belly up like a dog, and shows his teeth. His pulse races away into the soft strands of the carpet; the lamp bulbs around the bedroom twin and blur, lights separating, hazy, from their sources. 

“Shall we begin?” asks Byeongkwan in a voice that suggests he did not prepare for answers beyond _yes._

Jun looks along his pumping chest, past his swaying knee, up at Byeongkwan.

_“Please.” _

Before the last syllable forms up in Junhee’s chest, Byeongkwan changes. His gaze turns chilly and alert beneath velvety eyeshadow. He lowers his shoulders into place; his head tilts by a degree as if listening for Junhee’s tiny whirring heart.

“You have one chance,” he says, “to get away from me.” 

Junhee sucks a sharp breath through his smile. He closes his eyes and moves his body like a piece of bait—a single feinting squirm, only the first strokes of scrambling away—just convincingly enough for Byeongkwan to lunge.

Byeongkwan darts dangerously fast. He throws himself after Junhee and their bodies crash together, deeper into the room, toward the mirror, skidding on the rug. He holds Jun’s belt and roughly untucks his shirt. Junhee kicks, but by the time his feet connect meaningfully with the floor Byeongkwan has slipped a hand up Jun’s bare chest, found the harness lashed over his sternum, and balled it in a fist.

He pulls so hard Junhee’s spine can be heard like a knuckle. Junhee shrieks his first of the night; Byeongkwan grips his entire face to quiet him, shoving his head back into the rug. Gleeful teeth and tongue touch Byeongkwan’s palm as Junhee cries out again, muffled.

“If you don’t shut up,” Byeongkwan spits. “I’ll send you away.”

Jun responds with a loud huff, lying back, eyes rolled.

“Filthy,” says Byeongkwan. “Wearing it to work, you desperate slut.” He loosens his hold on Junhee’s mouth.

Junhee whines, throat constricted by the arching of his neck off of the floor.

Byeongkwan lets Junhee’s torso down so he can pin him where he lies.

He tugs Junhee’s shirt the rest of the way open for a view of the harness under his day clothes: thin straps of clear pink plastic that dig into the softest parts of Junhee’s body, forming little mounds of flesh between them. The skin of Junhee’s chest is flushed dark and deepens as he breathes, oxygenating. The rose quartz vinyl cinches his waist; presses across each slack pectoral muscle from nipple to breastbone; runs lengthwise in handles over his shoulders and midline.

Byeongkwan scoops saliva out of his cheek and trails it down Junhee’s face with his thumb. Junhee scrunches his nose—out flicks the tongue that won’t stay in that giant mouth. 

“Hmph,” Byeongkwan says softly.

He presses his knee into Junhee’s chest until Junhee’s breath whistles. He draws up his other leg to drive the top of his thigh against Junhee’s groin, digging deeper when he feels the firm warmth of Junhee’s dick swelling like a welt beneath him.

“Already? Eager bitch,” he says. “You think I’ll let you have it just like that?”

He pushes off hard when he rises, causing Jun to contract his body with a groan. Junhee has turned quiet and shivery on the floor, his hand curled into the carpet by his head—smiling furtively, struggling to keep his eyes steady.

_“Strip.”_

Junhee twists his fingers in the flagging side of his shirt and pulls it down to reveal his upper arm only, then pauses. Byeongkwan’s hand, expecting mischief, has already selected a flogger from the desk. Its falls are rosy suede, but its handle matches Junhee’s harness with holographic plastic, casting pinkish light like a sinister soap bubble. It even sports a chain with a crescent moon charm. He may be badged and booted like a corporal, but Byeongkwan isn’t shy about his pretty things.

He’s not shy about anything. He skims the ends over Junhee’s bare stomach until Junhee chokes. 

“Any day now,” he growls.

With poor control of his extremities, Jun unbuttons his jeans. Byeongkwan seizes the waistband and pulls it down impatiently. Junhee’s limbs are liquid, limp; his knees and elbows blush brown like his neck and shoulders. Byeongkwan trails the flogger’s thongs between Junhee’s legs.

“Over.”

Lower body bare, shirt finally dragging only from a single wrist, Junhee rolls onto all fours. Pale blue eyelet panties cut uncomfortably low across his hips and squeeze him everywhere. The soft muscles of his ass are pinched by the elastic, patterned pink indents dotting his thighs. His awkward erection has nowhere to go, can only push futilely into the fabric.

Blue ink bleeds in the sweat of Junhee’s back, where the waistband of his underwear bears jerky lettering in magic marker: 김병관. Byeongkwan’s boot on Jun’s ass cheek pushes him onto his hips and elbows, so deep the rug fluff tickles his face.

Byeongkwan drops something hard and heavy to the floor by Junhee’s head, close and loud enough that Jun yelps and begins to curl up—Byeongkwan stamps him firmly back down.

Jun looks through his hair at the object. He recognizes it by sound alone, but reaches over to touch it with a whimper.

It’s a combination lock diary. Its cover has a corny design, straight from the top of a bookstore checkout line kiosk: pink faded into blue, freckled with white stars, the English word “Gemini” printed under an outlined constellation.

“Ah, this already?” says Junhee, his voice a touch too excited to pass for pleading.

“How else will I know how bad you’ve been?”

“Ahh—” Junhee hisses. He hangs his head and doesn’t move except to skim his fingers over the book in circles. “Fuck.” 

Byeongkwan snaps at Junhee’s calves with the flogger, harder than he needs to. 

“Watch your mouth,” he says, but can’t suppress a smirk as Junhee dips his body forward at the impact, toes curled, tongue prodding into the curve of his wrist, biting, trying not to cry out again. 

He crouches and grabs the harness to arch Junhee’s head back up. He leans in.

“Open it,” he says. The command falls hotly on Junhee’s jawbone with the breath that carries it.

Junhee grimaces with his tongue fixed in the corner of his mouth.

“No…”

Byeongkwan raps the diary’s lock with his knuckle and sits back.

“You’ll change your mind,” he says happily.

Junhee bites his lower lip and nestles his cheek into the itchy fibers of the rug. He tries to take a steadying gasp, but before he can, Byeongkwan lashes his shoulders. It drives all breath away. It drives all other sensation away.

The pain starts breezily, in a willowy flick—sweeps back like a retracting wave—then swishes, gathers up again, falls piece by piece in hailstone-heavy stings. Junhee’s soul shrinks down inside his skin until his body grows comfortably loose, a warm and wet place that no longer quite belongs to him. With the repeated pain, with all its colors and patterns, a ringing on his outer shell, comes cozy relief in helplessness. Not responsible for even himself anymore—only a wordless somewhere for him to pulse anonymously. The blood stirred up where the pain originates at his floating back rushes to his stomach and continues down. He’s aware of the pressure in his pelvis the way he could be aware of the room reverberating when he sings: it makes everything louder, brighter, but can’t be understood alone.

As soon as it ceases, Junhee fills his body viciously. He can see and hear again. Where there was cozy space beneath his skin, now he’s far too big everywhere. His lungs heave more air into his chest than it can hold; the pressure at the pit of his stomach is suddenly acute and hideous. His thighs shudder, his cock lurches painfully. He feels a cold boot under his knee and remembers who is responsible for him, for this body that now tightens around him.

“Please,” he hears himself say. “Anything.” To say he wants more is…If he has to self-determine, to occupy this body by himself, to decide on his own what he must think and feel for one more second... “Please, please…”

“You know what I need,” says Byeongkwan. “I have to know what you’ve been up to, little one.”

“I could—” Junhee’s tongue lunges out mid-sentence and almost gags him as the thrill of fear moves from his tailbone to his throat. He pants, reels back into place, swallows, continues. “I could keep saying no.” 

Byeongkwan cackles. He touches the tips of the flogger’s falls to the skin over Junhee’s kidneys, lightly as the legs of water skaters. Junhee groans deep in his chest and buries his face in the rug, beginning to uncoil, but Byeongkwan flicks the thongs away and does not bring them back down.

“That won’t work again. Open it, you useless slut.”

Byeongkwan breathing down his neck, Junhee aligns the combination dials. He doesn’t have to look; he tugs the latch and the securing band springs open. Byeongkwan narrows his eyes and rises, crossing behind. Junhee pulls the diary open to a recent page in front of him, close enough to read while on his stomach and elbows. Byeongkwan slowly, patiently, rests his boot on the base of Junhee’s neck.

“May I begin,” Junhee asks, tendons flexing under Byeongkwan’s sole.

“You may.”

“_Ahem_.” Junhee clears his throat comically and Byeongkwan laughs through his nose. He shoves Junhee’s head gently with his foot, and a hyper, high-voiced giggle peals out. Junhee beginning to joke is part of it, too. It means he’s uncomfortable, aching—it means it’s real. His stomach fans out with exaggerated breaths, jangling the harness against his ribs. His weight is collapsed into one wrist, one elbow; the heel of his own hand digs into his throat.

“_At our event last week,_” Junhee begins. At first the syllables warble. Byeongkwan keeps a constant pressure on the back of Junhee’s neck, drinking in his plaintive, giddy voice through the bottom of his shoe. 

“_Donghun-hyung whispered to me that he felt tired and put his head into my lap. I could feel his breath on me right—there—and his breath felt too hard and too hot, almost like a physical touch. It was like he’d lightly touched my dick in public. I was_” —Junhee gulps air and refocuses on the page— “_I was turned on so fast I forgot where I was. I felt stunned. He moved his head immediately and I got control of myself, but when he turned away from me to laugh with Chan, he looked at me in a way that I felt something almost scary. I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that he had done that to me on purpose. I was obsessed with that idea throughout the day. I kept imagining him controlling my body with his breath, heating my skin and tickling me without touching me until I begged for mercy. I gave him the signal to meet later—I gave our signal in front of all those people. I couldn’t help myself.”_

Byeongkwan clucks his tongue and gives a theatrically scolding grumble. His hand can be heard tapping over the surface of the desk, picking through tools. He does not take his foot from Junhee’s neck.

“_The manager saw me and she kicked the back of my chair, but that made me even more excited. My mind was filthy. I wanted Donghun to do something to me again before the event closed, anything—to grab me by the back of the neck, to touch me through my clothes, even just tease me. That’s what I thought it was reasonable to hope for, I mean, but really I wanted him to shove me down on the table. I pestered him like a puppy, but he only watched me with a patient or even a bored look, completely heartless. He did come to me later, though, in the usual place._

_“I asked him to tease me with his breath like he did at the event, but he did something better. He said ‘What are you talking about?’ and laughed at me like.... With those sweet eyes on me he grinned and laughed and made me so small in that moment, so lost and confused and pathetic. My whole skin felt wet with shame and I was really close to tears. It makes me feel so good to be picked on by him. I hate it and I love it. It’s especially cruel. Like I’m to be pitied, like a dog, harshly disciplined but also cared for. I wanted him so much my hands shook. I wanted him to choke me so badly that my throat got tight, and my eyes only watered, I couldn’t ask him for anything anymore. I hung my head. He kept laughing. He pulled me in and hugged me. Then he wrestled me off my feet like I was a wild animal. I did feel rabid. I was so hard I could have blacked out. He slammed me into the wall until my skull rattled. He fucked me until there was drool to wipe up off the closet floor before practice.”_

Junhee shivers pleasantly when the recollection moves across his body, flaring once more into recency before it fades into something more intangible, distant, semipermanent. His neck and ears burn coppery in the bedroom’s hot light. His reading voice is strained; his eyes are wide; but a childish self-satisfaction plays across his lips even as he pants into the rug. He gnaws his mouth with his top teeth when the entry ends. 

“Stop there,” Byeongkwan says. He lifts his foot away and Jun’s head drops down as if releasing from the boot’s magnetic pull. 

“You really are a stupid, helpless whore, aren’t you?” he says daintily. “Using the fuck me signal in a crowd of people watching your every move…all because you’re a miserable beggar who can’t even control his own miserable cock?”

Junhee’s breath wheezes outward and he reddens. He shrinks into the floor under the contempt in Byeongkwan’s voice.

“Some leader,” Byeongkwan continues. He lowers his voice and stalks around to the other side of Junhee’s flattened body, toward his face. “Your dick leads you around, doesn’t it? And who leads your dick?”

Byeongkwan crouches at Junhee’s head. He lifts Junhee’s chin up with a hand that holds a pair of wrist cuffs. He takes a healthy look across the sparkling pink vinyl into Junhee’s face. He squints in satisfaction to see a slime of spit around Junhee’s mouth, the trail of a senseless flailing tongue. Junhee averts his gaze with the uncontrollable smile of a caught liar—but then, as it tends to, his expression changes.

He pulls in his lips softly. His forehead twitches in the smallest furrow as he looks up through his lashes at Byeongkwan, the glass-black of his eyes almost iridescent, nostrils flared out in a tiny, anguished sigh. 

Byeongkwan feels a blush burst out on his cheeks. He almost steps back. _What was that?_ he thinks angrily. It’s because Junhee’s lovely, limber body is curved up toward him in rapt attention—because Junhee’s expression shimmers at him expectantly, intensely, humorous but docile and entreating. He’s used to all of this—they both are—but habit never helps the fact that Jun is fucking pretty. 

Pretty, little, exquisitely edible. Byeongkwan wants to enfold Junhee completely, to gather him into his chest protectively and to devastate him. He wants to make Junhee cry and comfort him with equal intensity. And with that expression—the eerie, coyly pitiful expression of a fairy in a butterfly net—Junhee is begging him for all of it.

“Look at yourself,” says Byeongkwan. His voice cracks. He grabs Junhee’s head roughly and turns him onto his cheek to face the mirror. “Look at that. What’s going on here?”

Junhee spits a hair out of his mouth and squints, winded, at the dim ember of his reflection. He surveys himself sideways and pauses annoyingly, as if he has to think hard to come up with flaws.

“Ah,” he gasps. “My acne, that will never heal. My ears…um…too much teeth…” He fights to keep a straight face. Byeongkwan rattles him. The possessive anger feels real for a moment. Fury at beauty.

“Wrong,” he says. “You’re perfect. But you’re a weak, exaggerated, whining clown.”

Junhee’s whole body recoils and he cowers with a grin too wide for his skull. 

“You’re lucky you have me,” adds Byeongkwan, collecting himself, “to keep your pathetic, thirsty dick in its place.”

He stands and moves back, eyes fixed down at Junhee, until his hip finds a bedpost. He feels it strongly now. The flush in his face and chest become persistent. Watching Junhee shrink and glisten like a fainting star, growing weaker and more watery as he sweats and flicks his stupid tongue, intoxicates Byeongkwan. He loves seeing his influence reflected in the tiny flinches, the ingratiating or degraded gestures, the entire fabric of Junhee’s body humbly showing off his work. He watches the first red marks begin to dissolve and fade from Junhee’s shoulders. He’s eager to refresh them.

“Now come here.”

Junhee crawls closer without resistance. Byeongkwan supports him by the harness over his chest, raises him to his knees, and cuffs his wrists to the bed above the mattress. Seeing that Junhee is off the rug now, bare joints on the hard linoleum, Byeongkwan twists Junhee’s shirt into a roll and slides it under him. He knots the sleeves together over Junhee’s calves. 

Junhee rests his burning forehead on the cool wood of the bedpost and closes his eyes. In this raised, kneeling position, the darkened underwear now holds his cock against his stomach. He tries to breathe gently, to pace himself, but he’s become sensitive in every cell of skin. The smallest frictions find him everywhere—his balls, his teeth, the soft soles of his feet. Byeongkwan moves behind him and picks something else up from the desk. The flogger flutters.

Byeongkwan flicks his wrist and snaps the thongs in loud crack that wounds the air. Jun balks into his forearms, but what connects with his back is feathers. Feathers…moving up his side, following the flow of blood into his chest, rolling back down as ticklish as sweat, tingling deep in his spine. Byeongkwan manipulates a feather duster lightly in his left hand until Junhee’s head lifts off the bedpost, his concentration on the barely-perceptible feeling like straining to hear a far-off sound.

Then, when he has attuned to the quietness of that touch—when Junhee’s focus is so acute that he can feel the semi-soft, hard-rubber-like bend of each feather’s shaft against his skin—Byeongkwan whips him.

Better than the shock of impact is the refractory moment, Jun’s body scrambling to understand the lash. His muscles seize then loosen raggedly as fresh, sizzling welts ooze heated air like blood. His heart thumps and he hears Byeongkwan’s insults distantly. He has cried out—a blunt kick lands on his thigh—he squeezes his mouth shut with his teeth. The endorphins break free into all of him at once. The unconscious, reflexive movement of his body away from the pain rubs his dick inside his underwear. Saliva pools in his clamped mouth.

Another blow and Junhee’s mouth rattles open. Drool spatters on the side of the mattress. Another—a bundle of falls bolting from left shoulder to right ribs, warming through Junhee’s chest until his nipples feel bruised.

“Hah—” His eyes fog with involuntary tears. “_Cut me_,” he spits out unsteadily. His voice starts deep in his stomach and fails at his lips. “God—_please_—”

Byeongkwan snaps at Junhee’s skin with just enough rhythm and restraint, again and again until he can see Junhee’s breath in puffs of fog inside his gaping mouth. Junhee’s face is bold and furious with focus one moment, collapsed into a dizzy smile the next. One of the raised streaks on his back bursts just slightly, threading beads of red across its length. Without warning, Byeongkwan stays his hand. He finds the diary with his foot and slides it back toward Junhee’s knees so Junhee can resume reading between his arms.

“Read the next entry,” he orders. “Now.”

Junhee groans heavily, eyes rolled back, a wet grin on his face. Pink tongue, pointed tooth. Byeongkwan scoffs and drapes the flogger’s thongs across Jun’s chest.

“Concentrate,” he says, feigning exasperation. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

Junhee lowers his head and squints at the page. 

Byeongkwan picks a tiny harness from his desk and fits it with small, soft, silicone toy—a bulbed purple piece that curves smoothly, subtly up.

“And who’s in this one?” He buckles the harness to the top of his right boot.

“Sehyoon-hyu_hh_…” Junhee’s breath swishes to a halt as Byeongkwan hooks a thumb into his waistband and pulls. The panties stick to his skin as they shuffle down; the elastic struggles with his erection, tugging painfully before they snap free and fall soggily around his knees. Byeongkwan has already lubed his hand and slipped it through the backs of Junhee’s thighs. Junhee squeals when he feels Byeongkwan’s fingers turn shallowly inside him, when cold globs drop thickly on his calves; Byeongkwan snorts back a laugh and smacks Junhee’s ass. Junhee writhes, gasp-giggling, until Byeongkwan can’t help but brush a kiss across the flush of Junhee’s neck. Their laughter breaks back down to softer sounds. 

Byeongkwan rises to his feet. He wriggles his harnessed boot between Junhee’s calves, pushing apart the sleeves of Junhee’s shirt that had tied them. The wet dildo pokes the back of Junhee’s knee and pulls a whimper as it moves into position. Byeongkwan places his hands on Junhee’s shoulders and pushes him unceremoniously down on his haunches.

Junhee shudders, breathes backwards until he can’t breathe anymore. His face flashes forward through expressions like a flip book animation as the dildo flares its way into him, bump by bump, a slippery, pulsing feeling. Wrinkled nose and squeezed eyes, forehead knotting then releasing, mouth folding under his sharp tooth then tongue blossoming out in a long, obscene curl—

Byeongkwan rolls his ankle a little, curving the tip of his boot under Junhee’s balls, ensuring that the soft length of the foreign object fills out every corner. Junhee whines. His dick droops; his lower lip tucks back into his mouth. He tries to make a grinding motion with his hips, but Byeongkwan holds him down ferociously. Byeongkwan wraps his hand around Junhee’s throat for a moment. Then he slides his hand to the back of Junhee’s neck and forces his head forward.

“_Read._”

With his wrists cuffed to the bed, Junhee can’t even steady himself. 

“_I want Kim Sehyoon to be the leader for a day!_” He blurts the first line in a near panic. He feels Byeongkwan pushing the dildo just barely forward and his dick swells out again, too soon. The muscles in his stomach contract in nervous spasms. He won’t be able to make it very far, he knows—and they’ve hardly begun. He keeps reading, slurring slightly as he races to get out the words before Byeongkwan ruins him.

“_It would start with him waking me up. He’d pull—_” Junhee’s breath catches, hardly more than a hiccup, as Byeongkwan twitches his boot but then holds back. A threat. 

“_He’d pull the sheets off me quickly while I’m naked in bed, earl…early in the morning, leave me cold and shivering until I had to get up. I would wash my face and he would shut off the heat, hold my head under the water…Then he could write his name on my throat and draw silly drawings on my face with magic marker and I’d h—_haah_—_” 

It starts. Byeongkwan rocks Junhee forward by the shoulders and pulls him back down, fucking deep. It’s still slow, just the one thrust, but Junhee’s eye skips off the page. He needs a second to reel upright.

“_h—have to walk around like that all day, even when we went on V App. He would—_oh_—he would—_ohh_—_” Byeongkwan begins moving rhythmically. He lifts the heel of his boot off the ground to fuck forward. Pinpointing. Lights pop in Junhee’s eyes. He doubles down and reads through tears, through gritted teeth.

“—_coach during practice instead of m—mm, _ah_—_” He laughs, crinkling his eyes shut. “_It’s too hard_—”

Byeongkwan doesn’t let up. He just growls. He grabs a fistful of Junhee’s hair and pushes his head back down. Junhee really cries out, loud and musical and throbbing.

“_He would scold Chan for things I don’t. He would be harsh—and make us all sweat, and_—OH my God—” Junhee laughs again into his armpit as Byeongkwan lets out an involuntary sigh and fucks him harder. Junhee talking like this about Sehyoon is making Byeongkwan milder and more eager than he means to be. He alternates between railing and massaging, strokes that hover and plunge, leaning into Junhee’s shoulders. Unable to take hold of anything else, Junhee grips his own hands until his knuckles checker white and red. 

“_Even when…everyone else was done practicing…_”

The words are falling apart on the page. A droplet forms on the head of Junhee’s dick when Byeongkwan’s booted toes curl up under his taint, when the dildo squishes and thumps almost awkwardly inside him; when Byeongkwan rocks his foot the other way, heel raised again, taking insistent, deadly aim.

“…_he would hold me back and make me—do it again—and again—and—_” 

Byeongkwan pulls Junhee back into his pelvis by the throat, gagging him, pressing his hard-on against Junhee’s skull so Junhee knows just how good it feels to turn him inside out.

“_Ghh_—”

An inhale that sucks too much drool with it. Junhee can’t read anymore. Byeongkwan pulling his head up away from the diary has finished it. Letters stop spelling words. Jun closes his eyes at the ceiling, head back, shoulders strained at their sockets from leaning on bound wrists. Oozing on his own thigh. The still-rubbing dildo grown hotter and rougher inside him. That pressure. Choking moans, too loud, too naked, it’s—

Junhee’s eyebrows furrow up. He feels that bolt begin from his nipples down to the root of his belly. His stomach clenches as he struggles to control it, but he doesn’t. Byeongkwan controls it.

“Oh, no—”

“Not yet,” Byeongkwan snarls. His boot agrees. Light and gentle, just fluttery enough to sustain that terrible pressure. Byeongkwan’s left hand leaves Junhee’s shoulder. 

He kneels down behind Junhee with care not to move his right foot, to give Junhee a second to breathe. Now they’re kneeling together, Junhee in front, cuffed to the bed, sitting on Byeongkwan’s boot. With the bed sort of to the left, Byeongkwan has to hold Junhee’s harness in his right hand while he feels around on the floor for something.

Junhee tries to grind his hips again but Byeongkwan stops him with a vicious yank.

“Hold _still._”

Byeongkwan finds the wand vibrator just feet away under the bed. When he leans ever so slightly to grab it, he loses his balance and teeters against Junhee, who shudders. He stabilizes himself on the mattress. Junhee is twitching, not daring to breathe. Satisfied that the dildo hasn’t slipped, Byeongkwan snakes his right hand over Junhee’s shoulder and clamps the crook of his elbow over Junhee’s mouth.

He needs to. When he switches on the wand, just the sight of it forces Junhee into smothered hysterics. Byeongkwan rumbles it against Junhee’s thigh, across his hip, along the underside of his cock.

Junhee shouts against Byeongkwan’s elbow, eyes screwed up into stars. He comes in humiliating, helpless dribbles and Byeongkwan bursts out laughing. 

Byeongkwan keeps cackling and choking Jun out. He drops the vibrator and holds his right wrist to squeeze Junhee’s mouth tighter. When he lets go, Junhee is limp and red-faced, chalky-pink with tear tracks in concealer.

“Had enough?”

Junhee nods and taps out. He’s shaking from breathlessness but keeps moaning, spasming. God, he’s loud.

Byeongkwan pulls the dildo away. Junhee grins and gasps. He pitches forward so that Byeongkwan has to catch him before his forehead hits the bed frame. He dangles from his bound hands, completely fucked senseless. Byeongkwan unlatches Junhee’s wrists and helps him lie down on the rug. 

“_Waaah._”

Junhee smiles with his eyes closed and his tongue between his teeth. He opens his mouth.

“Shut up already,” says Byeongkwan, but addresses Junhee like a hyung again. He’s forgotten what he’s doing. He’s focused on a thousand other things: the flush on Jun’s chest, his dark nipples; the raw marks from the vinyl, sweat bright in the smooth black arch of an eyebrow; dick still firm, a grin far too sparkling and sharp for someone who just bottomed that hard. 

Byeongkwan’s eyes also wander to the open diary, to the words about King Wow. He reaches for the book, but Junhee’s hand jumps out and stops him. 

“No, no, no,” says Junhee weakly. “For next time.”

That does it. Byeongkwan unbuckles the strap from his boot and flops down onto Junhee’s chest, not caring if cum smudges into his jeans. He grinds against Junhee’s naked body. He kisses Jun on the mouth. Jun’s smile flexes prettily. 

Byeongkwan shuffles off his tank top and drops it with a jingle of fake medals. He wants Junhee’s hands on him. He’s hungry for it. Junhee reaches up to Byeongkwan but his motions are dreamy and faint. He’s still breathing hard. He looks at Byeongkwan with fawning eyes.

“Give me a second, it—Ah, you’re hot. _Ooh_.” He allows himself a satisfied sigh as Byeongkwan menaces him gently. 

“A bit more, Junhee-hyung? Just a few more minutes?”

“I can’t…no, I’m worn out…” Junhee giggles. Lower lip bitten white. Byeongkwan grips Junhee’s sore wrists and stares him down. Junhee tries to be serious, to look pitiful, stare unblinking back, but his mouth puckers and his eyes crescent upward in a smile. His nostrils flare at the muscles in Byeongkwan’s chest. “No, I mean…I could…”

Byeongkwan makes sure Junhee feels his erection on the sharp bone of his hip. He presses his tongue to the back of his teeth and lets his mouth fill with spit. 

“More,” Junhee breathes. “Just a little bit more—”

Byeongkwan is too ready. He spatters a mouthful of spit into Junhee’s face. He rises and puts the sole of his boot on Jun’s lower belly.

“Take off my shoes.”

Junhee wipes his face jerkily. He fumbles in Byeongkwan’s shoelaces, pinned, unable to raise his head. After some effort he gets off the too-tall boots and lets them fall heavily by his ears, arms exhausted. Byeongkwan unbuttons his own jeans. With his pants around his thighs, he shoves Junhee’s face to the side with his bare foot. Junhee cries out happily. 

Then Byeongkwan lies back down in the rug fluff next to a naked, ragdolled Junhee, cradling the lube bottle with pride. Junhee rolls over onto his stomach.

“Fuck me,” Junhee says quietly, “but nicely—seriously—please—”

Byeongkwan pushes Junhee’s hair away from his neck. He traces Jun’s top vertebrae with his nose, from between his shoulder blades up to his skull. Junhee smells like fresh fuck sweat on top of stale dance practice sweat on top of women’s wild violet deodorant. The sight of the welts and scrapes across Junhee’s back makes Byeongkwan ache behind the knees.

“It’s okay,” Byeongkwan hears himself say. “I’ll take care of you.”

He rests his forehead in the curve of Junhee's shoulder and strokes himself a few times. Lube drips down his wrist, runny in the heat of the room. He touches Junhee as softly as he can with the least slimy parts of his hands. He arranges Junhee onto his side, one leg bent forward, while Junhee’s head lolls coyly on the carpet. He unbuckles some straps of the harness so he can feel Junhee’s whole scored and stinging back burn feverishly against his chest. He brings his leg up under Junhee’s and slides his cock in slowly. It’s easy, with all the lube smeared around, Junhee warmed up from the strap-on—still, Junhee is tight and hot and intense. They both gasp the same note. Junhee laughs at the unison and shyly shoves Byeongkwan’s thigh. Smirking into Junhee’s hair, Byeongkwan hooks his arm around Junhee’s chest and fucks him. 

Junhee makes soft approving sounds but seems to have run out of screams. He just poses his fay body and curls his hands in the rug, rakes his tongue along the corner of his mouth, nods and murmurs yes. 

Byeongkwan focuses on making it gentle and quick. Just enough to relieve the pressure. To draw Junhee close. In minutes he pulls out to come on Junhee’s ass. Junhee hums through a grin.

“You happy little slut,” says Byeongkwan. Junhee hums again and pulls Byeongkwan’s arms around him.

“Mm-hm.”

The two of them wait for the world to flicker back into focus. Once Byeongkwan catches his breath, he eases Junhee out of the rest of that pink harness. He massages out the reddened imprints with his thumb.

“I’m…” 

“Yeah?”

“...hungry,” Junhee says.

“I’ll feed you.” Byeongkwan lurches to his knees for a towel and some hand sanitizer. The room feels dark and dirty now, soiled toys scattered. The movie’s monstrous sounds can finally be heard as close as they are, which is to say feet away in the living room. The volume must be at maximum.

The alcohol is acrid and chilly on Byeongkwan’s hands. He wads the towel up and dabs Junhee’s spit-covered face dry first. Then he tends to all the rest, drawing the cloth lightly over Junhee’s hips and thighs to lift away the scum, muddled fluids gone cold and tacky.

“I’ll feed you, my...”

“Your what?” Junhee laughs. “Ah, really.” His tender, maternal tone resurfaces jarringly fast.

“Jellies.” Byeongkwan crinkles the brightly-colored snack bag.

“Mmm. Gimme.”

“Not in the mood for games today, huh?”

“I’m so…so tired, seriously. But that was so good...”

“Was it?” Byeongkwan twitches his eyebrow haughtily.

“It was just right. Just perfect. You’re no joke. You’re really…”

“Say I own your ass.”

Junhee pretends to be embarrassed. He lifts himself up on his elbow so he can hang his head.

“Kim Byeongkwan unconditionally, heroically, owns my helpless twink ass. Jelly please!”

Byeongkwan thumbs a piece of candy into Junhee’s mouth.

“God, don’t be so annoying.”

Junhee butts his forehead against Byeongkwan’s.

“Ahh. Kim Byeongkwan. I’d never make it without you.”

In that moment every edge and angle of Byeongkwan’s heart pokes him in the middle of his chest. He drags the softest blanket off the bed and folds Junhee in it with him, throwing it over both their heads so the light of the room seeps through in fluffy red clouds, blotted and distant. They exchange jelly snacks for a while. Junhee spits out a sour one into his hand. Byeongkwan curls his toes against Junhee’s feet. He pushes out his lips and lifts his eyebrows, trying to look subtly prettier while sweat sticks Junhee’s hair to his temples in careless waves and the shadows mattify his skin. Junhee looks down at the sparkling wad of chewed-up candy in his palm and then at Byeongkwan through his eyelashes.

“If you look at me like that again,” says Byeongkwan quietly, “I’ll have to keep you here all night.”

Junhee breaks down into a shy smile and drops his head on Byeongkwan’s shoulder.

“You _purred_ at me just then when you said that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Junhee does that humming laugh again. He wriggles out of the blanket and shivers as the sweat finally begins to cool his skin. He stands up with a sore, nasal sound. The goopy emerald of reject candy plops into the trash.

“Ah, ah,” Byeongkwan says, stuttering to his feet. He stuffs a leg into his accordioned jeans. “There’s some clean pajamas over on the bed. No, behind you, see?”

Junhee feels around and finds the offering Byeongkwan has laid out, neatly folded by the pillow, and repeats himself—giggling through his nose, a giddy, musical sound. It’s a pair of black basketball shorts only Yuchan is tall enough to wear, and a satiny piece of Take Me Higher salvage: a long gold-and-floral quarter-sleeve robe, preciously rescued by Donghun from last year’s promotions. Jun runs his hands over the clothes and lists against the bed a little.

“So you want our hyung to kill me.” 

“It would be hot,” shrugs Byeongkwan.

Junhee laughs in wonder at the robe, but sits down and shrugs into it happily. He leaves the shorts and instead wraps Donghun’s garment shut around his waist. It won’t stay on his shoulders; half of his chest slips out to keep his bare thigh company. That aggravating, dainty body. His skin is still red and swollen in streaks. A welt under his collarbone has started looking tight and blue. Byeongkwan grimaces.

“When did that happen? Did I do that?”

“What?” Jun looks at himself. He smiles at the marks. He even flashes the whites of his eyes at Byeongkwan, as if he could possibly take any more.

“No, that one. Does it hurt?”

“What?” says Junhee again. “Nope, it’s just right. Mm, you did well, huh?” He knuckles his eyelids and folds his feet into his lap. He has a sleepy, well-fed glow.

“If you bruise up, I’ll be the one who gets killed. Ointment…” Byeongkwan rattles a dresser drawer around until a crumpled tube of arnica gel rolls out of the heap. He squeezes some into his hand and gets near Junhee, who hooks a middle finger through his belt loop and tugs.

“Annoying!” cries Byeongkwan. He catches his balance at the edge of the mattress.

“I’m not annoying.” Junhee grins into Byeongkwan’s chest. “I’m great.”

**

  
_Akira_ is loud and long like Donghun said. When they come out, Yuchan has curled up from his gangling sprawl. Sehyoon shields Yuchan’s ears but Yuchan shoos him away with a pained expression. Donghun sits relaxed but crestfallen, mouth open, eyes poignant. Then he catches sight of Junhee slinking to the kitchen, the beautiful robe tied haphazardly at the waist and billowing out over the shiny shin-length basketball shorts, and shouts.

“_OH?_ Where did you get that?”

Yuchan and Sehyoon swivel. Junhee startles, giggling nervously, clutching the robe to his chest.

“Byeongkwan had it!” Byeongkwan raises his hands to signal innocence.

“Jun-ah! Jun-ah! Don’t make me come over this couch! Damn you!” Donghun’s voice is booming and severe, but hilarity, not anger, warms his face. He laughs through flared nostrils as Jun approaches sheepishly, uncontrollably into his open-armed scolding. Six arms swarm Junhee down onto the sofa—his ears tugged pink, clothes balled jealously in Donghun’s fists, Yuchan laughing wildly. Junhee scrambles his way into the safe haven of Sehyoon’s lap and Sehyoon holds him as he writhes.

“Jun-ah, Jun-ah,” Sehyoon repeats with soft amusement.

“Help me!”

Sehyoon beams. Donghun slaps Junhee’s ass and Junhee gives out a toothy yowl. Before Junhee can kick at him, Donghun retreats to Chan’s side of the couch, bored and needy again.

“You’re all—_really—_!”

Sehyoon rocks him. 

“Shh, bro. Shh.”

Junhee grumbles. Smiles flare up and expire, exhausted from overuse, across his face. But he does hush. His gaze softens and finds the TV screen. Some cartoon men shoot at a tank with guns.

“Ahh noooo, a battle…” 

Huge booms of gunfire and dynamite. A man crams bonds into a briefcase. Junhee’s mouth hangs open like it does when he’s falling asleep. Sehyoon smirks at him and flutters his finger against Junhee’s pouting lower lip. Junhee’s cheek scrunches a little, but his head gives up its whole weight into Sehyoon’s stomach. He breathes loud and deep, as secure and careless as a child. Donghun’s robe has come loose again. The scraped skin is shiny, sticky with some kind of antiseptic balm.

Donghun whines unhappily as a door creaks open on a trail of red, a bathtub full of bodies. Yuchan, already only looking through his eyelashes, ribs him for the alarming sound and Donghun pretends to suffer internal bleeding.

Seyhoon walks his fingers over the rumbling snore in Junhee’s chest, over the lush markings and that tense, accidental bruise. When Byeongkwan alights on the back of the couch, Sehyoon turns with a grin.

“Look at him,” Sehyoon whispers.

Byeongkwan titters, head on Sehyoon’s head, at Junhee sprawled stupidly, sweetly.

“You work hard,” says Sehyoon. His voice is sincere. Byeongkwan makes a show of preening, but the praise warms him, too. He tilts his head to get his kiss. Sehyoon gives it without thinking, against a backdrop of ugly bloodshed, blaring car horns.

Byeongkwan sits back happily. The chaos of the movie suits, he thinks, this screeching tangle of limbs that sometimes feels like his alone, for holding and nourishing its center. If he couldn’t give Jun what he needed like this, where would they all be? He feels the self-importance well up inside him so luxurious, so golden, that he has to talk himself down a bit. He nestles closer to Sehyoon to feel smaller, to solicit some humbling head pats.

A helicopter reels out and explodes. Yellow fire consumes the whole breadth of the screen. Thrumming choral music and gunshots. Red smoke. Byeongkwan senses Yuchan’s eyes move from Junhee’s naked chest to him. He drives Yuchan’s look away with an unabashed stare. What was that?

But the moment dissolves in the movie scene. Yuchan’s eyes resume shimmering like Donghun’s, dark and wide. Sehyoon watches down his nose, contemplating. Junhee wheezes in his sleep, and for once the ruckus is contained somewhere, on this couch, in a show, a span of time—and all is happy, normal.


	2. you're so my little thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuchan: This better not awaken anything in me.

Donghun sits on the floor slowly, pressing through the stiffness in his thighs, enjoying the stretch but not the eye-watering ache. He’s sore. That lanky beggar is making him sore. When did Yuchan get so tall and rough, like a yearling puppy suddenly so big, not knowing its strength? When did he get that hot, mean look, with lowered eyelids, jaw stuck out like a playground bully? And where does he get all that—energy? Donghun smiles and pulls the little gift bag toward his lap. His fingers push aside crinkling decorative tissue paper and flakes of shiny mylar. Is there a note? There is a note, an embossed tag tied to a piece of twine. He squints at it, past the department store hologram at the smudged blue pen. He knows it’s English, but the handwriting is indecipherable. He sees a smushed heart shape and an elaborate “L” in the corner. His phone buzzes.

Livio  
_Did you get it?_

Suddenly, Donghun feels like a special bitch.

Donghun  
_Yes!_  
_<3333333_  
_xxxxx_

Livio  
_Stay pretty, caro!_

Donghun  
_(◡‿◡✿)_  
_xoxo_

Donghun turns his phone over. A second later, it lights up into the fibers of the threadbare rug. He ignores it. He feels in the bag for the angled plastic case. He pulls out a large black palette, reflectively clean, and clicks it open. 

“Ah! Pretty.”

He tilts the palette side to side under the lamplight, enjoying the unbroken tops of nine pressed eyeshadows. They’re vivid and mounded. An iridescent shimmer in a key-lime off-white; a second glitter with green particles as big as snowflakes; some kind of purply gold; a jade, an emerald, a matte evergreen, an iris, a violet, a Venus.

Yuchan bangs open the door cheerfully. Donghun’s hand finds Livio’s note and crushes it. The cardstock corners poke into his palm.

“Ooh, hyung-ah, you got a present!”

Yuchan throws himself arms-first onto Donghun and juts his chin over Donghun’s shoulder to look. Donghun drops the crumpled card and reaches up to rub the back of Yuchan’s head. All soreness melts away under the warmth of Yuchan's skin.

“That looks nice. Where did it come from? That English guy?” Donghun feels Yuchan’s lower lip brush his earlobe as it sticks out, petulant.

“Nobody,” says Donghun blissfully. He can’t help but turn his head to catch Yuchan’s pout against his cheek. “Well, he’s Italian, not English, but he’s nobody.”

Yuchan finds his lips on Donghun’s cheek and presses them in harder. His long arms squeeze until Donghun coughs and pretends to flinch in pain. Yuchan’s body goes quiet and steady against him for a moment.

“Am I really hurting you?”

Donghun laughs.

“What do you think?”

“Good,” says Yuchan, tracing his fingers along Donghun’s scalp. Donghun shivers.

“Where did you learn to do that, you infant?”

Yuchan grins and retracts his hand shyly. An urgent “just kidding!” look flashes across his face, but he collects himself and restores the right amount of cool to the way he looks at Donghun. Dead in the face. Donghun beams at him and grabs his ear roughly. Yuchan knifehands Donghun away and makes his eyes very wide. Donghun fits his head all the way into the curve of Yuchan’s shoulder and tips the palette back and forth again, examining the colors, making it sparkle.

“Are you going to try it on?” asks Yuchan.

“I think this glitter green would look so good on you,” says Donghun, not listening. “On your pretty big eyes.” He makes his voice pointedly wistful.

“Ahh.” Yuchan sounds low and businesslike, like a newscaster. Donghun begs with the languid weight of his back on Yuchan’s chest.

“I like that color. But you should do it on me, how you’re picturing it, okay? Otherwise I’ll make it ugly.”

“What are you talking about? You’re good at it.”

Yuchan laughs sheepishly again.

“Will you just do it for me?”

Donghun shuffles to his knees.

“What’s everyone else doing?” he asks. He’s not afraid of getting caught. He just wants Yuchan to himself. He needs to be the most interesting thing happening in the dorm right now. He traces the edge of the deepest purple color, barely streaking it with his fingerprint, and dabs it onto his wrist. The pigment is bold but bleeds out more hues than expected; it ends up looking like a lurid bruise. Donghun feels Yuchan’s eyes sear into his skin and is satisfied.

“I dunno,” says Yuchan. He’s staring at Donghun with parted lips. “Just stuff. Or gone to bed.”

“Sit with me,” Donghun says. He reaches down the makeup mirror from his dresser. “We can do it together.”

“Ahh, hyung—“ says Yuchan, voice pained and tight. “Don’t you want to do that—later—?”

Turned fully around for the first time, Donghun looks at Yuchan with a lurch. Yuchan’s showing off his arms in a muscle tee, his only piece of clothing other than some boxer briefs. He looks angular and rude, legs folded on the floor, his expression burning from his squared, bare-skinned face. He is fierce and twitchy and adorable. His eyelids sink indelicately; he’s visibly half-hard. And Donghun wants a kiss—to immediately relive last night, the night before—but his body warns him away. Fatigue will sink in if he isn’t careful.

“No,” he smirks. “I want to try this palette out first. I think this green…”

“Sounds good,” Yuchan says. He scoots closer.

Donghun uses his forefinger to spread the glitter over Yuchan’s eyes. He shades closer to the lid with the dark forest green on the tip of a brush and suddenly Yuchan looks so different, like a jeweled insect, delicate, eyes evil and enormous.

“You look like a singer,” says Donghun. Yuchan quirks his head, perplexed.

“I…_am_ a singer…?”

“No, like…” Donghun tries to find words for the image that forms in his head. A beautiful girl standing alone, in a ring of harsh light, in the corner of a dingy club, singing. The taste of smoke in the mouth. One of those old-fashioned microphones. Why does this scene come to mind? Is it from a movie? Several movies? But it fades away like water.

“You just look like a singer from a different time,” says Donghun. “You just look perfect.”

Yuchan picks up the makeup mirror self-consciously. He looks at himself for a long time, mouth slightly open. He begins to smile—to blink slowly, sultrily, as if he sees it too. 

“Why do I think this needs red lips?” Yuchan asks softly. “Is that okay to say? Do you even have a color like that? I wouldn’t show anyone…”

Donghun feels a pang he can’t pinpoint, or doesn’t want to.

“Of course I have one. Go for it. This is for fun.”

Donghun reaches for the loosely-contained heap of other makeup and pulls out a red. Yuchan puts it on carefully, the color spilling just a little out of the corners of his mouth. He mumbles his lips to spread it evenly. He touches it up with his ring finger, which he then wipes on Donghun’s hand. Donghun flashes a threatening glare, but can’t keep it up when he looks at Yuchan. Hyper-awareness of a substance on his skin makes Yuchan hold his features differently, the way he might hold them for filming or photos. He passes the mirror back to Donghun.

“Now you do yours,” he says. Even when he breaks his gaze away from his reflection, Yuchan moves differently for a moment. His gestures are timid and musing. The impatient strength returns, but milder.

  
Donghun can’t resist trying each shade on himself before blotting it off fussily. He’s been doing this for years, but his hands still cramp around the tiny brushes, tremble at the finer strokes. He has to move slowly, hold back blinking until his eyes stream. Blackened makeup wipes pile up on the carpet. Yuchan occupies himself by dragging the shopping bag full of pencil cases full of mascaras and lip tints out from the corner. He uncaps each one, recaps it tightly, sorts out ones where the plastic casing has cracked or the color has gotten separated from the tube.

“Hyung? Do you know a lot of these are broken?”

“Junhee breaks them,” says Donghun. “They’re still good to use.”

“Do you really use the broken ones?” grins Yuchan. “I don’t think you do.”

Donghun feels his face warm as he draws a very faint streak of that bruisy purple around the corner of his eye. He looks sidelong at Yuchan, mustering his brattiest frown.

“Who says I have to use them? Someone will.”

Yuchan cackles. He wriggles on his side over to Donghun. Propped on one arm, he wraps his free hand around Donghun’s stomach and looks past him into the mirror.

“Don’t make me mess up.” Donghun can’t keep his voice stern, as much as he tries. His hand starts jittering again as he poises an eyeliner pen at the inside of his lid. He knows that once he starts the stroke, it will be smooth and steady, but it’s annoying. Then it occurs to him. He lowers his hand and puffs out a dramatic sigh.

“Can you help—“ Before he finishes his sentence, Yuchan catches Donghun’s face in his palm and turns his head toward him. Donghun gasps delightedly. The eyeliner rolls away. Yuchan retrieves it with a trick, twirling it between his fingers.

“Hold still.”

Donghun tips his chin toward Yuchan to expose the tops of his eyelids.

“Stop smiling so much,” laughs Yuchan. “I can’t get a good angle.”

“I believe in you,” says Donghun. He clears his throat, closes his eyes, and tries to ease the giddy feeling from his chest as Yuchan grasps his chin. The liner glides on, one eye done in an instant. Donghun raises his eyebrows in surprise as he feels Yuchan alight confidently on the other.

“Hey, don’t move! I’ll kill you!” 

Donghun tries to freeze, but an amused hiccup escapes his pursed lips. He darts his hand forward at Yuchan’s midriff to pinch him in the soft part of his ribs, but Yuchan curls out of the way and makes the second line. Donghun hears him curse, feels him rustle close and blow gently. He thinks he senses the world beyond his shuttered eyelids begin to spin; he grips Yuchan’s upper arms tightly, steadying himself and also trying to make Yuchan twist away. Yuchan doesn’t.

“All done. Sorry, it’s…”

Donghun opens his eyes and the room rushes back in with a greenish whirl. He drops onto his elbows in front of the makeup mirror. The new purple eyeshadow is moody on him, a little darkly sensitive, a little soft. It’s the kind of look he likes. The eyeliner is—

“But it’s so good!”

The flutter in Donghun’s chest when he thinks of how Yuchan must have practiced is too sudden, too overpowering to understand. His body forgets to ache. He turns around and Yuchan is the fucking sun and Donghun doesn’t have to ask. Yuchan bowls him over and kisses him. 

Donghun’s back hits the floor, his face tacky with Yuchan’s lipstick, looking up at this sparkling green-eyed creature. Yuchan straddles him, towering and feral. He’s already lifted away his shirt and shows his chest off proudly with heavy breaths. His dick brushes warmly through his underwear against Donghun’s belly, too ready, always far too goddamn ready. His body like an athlete’s—Who is he trying to impress?—with the outlined, adorned window of his face—So _pretty_—

Donghun draws strength from it, from Yuchan’s inexhaustible energy, his early-twenties horniness. How he’s always so strange and shiny and new. Donghun moves his downturned phone away from where Yuchan pinned it under his thigh. He tugs off his shirt, too. He reaches up to Yuchan’s neck and bows him down to get a mouthful of his tongue. Yuchan groans and squirms his body against Donghun, palming the floor fiercely, holding himself up.

“You’re pretty,” says Donghun when he catches a breath. Yuchan growls, scoff-smiles. His jaw juts forward. His lipstick is everywhere. He is blinding. Somehow the shimmer on his eyes makes him look extra dangerous. Where did _this_ come from? “You’re pretty.” Every pretty Donghun sprinkles onto him seems to make Yuchan eviler and stronger. He gives a couple more.

Yuchan drives his head down into Donghun’s chest. Kisses his breastbone, his throat, smearing them in red. 

Donghun thrills and rolls his eyes up to the corner of the room. 

“Oh shit,” he gasps, “close the door.”

Yuchan drags his mouth along the round of Donghun’s neck. A wet, dark touch of the tip of his tongue. He looks slowly up at Donghun with a deadened gaze.

“Why?” he says scornfully.

Donghun stares. Then Yuchan’s face breaks down in a grin.

“Ahh, what was that!” Donghun laughs, shoving Yuchan off of him. “‘Why?’ What on earth! You were so_ bad_ just then. You gave me chills.”

Yuchan goes giggling to the door and tugs it shut.

“I _am_ bad,” he says. He turns his chin to the side and looks roguishly at Donghun, sideways, smiling wide.

Donghun beams at him. His heart is thumping. Everything Yuchan does makes him stupid happy.

“You’re bad,” Donghun repeats, charmed within an inch of his life. His cheeks have begun to hurt from grinning. Yuchan prowls toward him on all fours. New muscles moving in his shoulders make Donghun bite his tongue. Donghun realizes he’s still on the floor and pulls himself, fumbling, up onto the bottom bunk. Yuchan pounces. 

This time, Donghun is ready for him. He seizes Yuchan’s arms and wrestles him into the mattress, grinding down on him, covering his face and head with kisses, so crazily he swallows glitter. Yuchan yelps and raises his knee up under Donghun’s hip, trying to leg-lift his way free. Donghun cuts his elbow into Yuchan’s thigh to force his leg back down, but his body stutters and tumbles sideways. He rolls against the wall; when he gets up, Yuchan already has him by the hair. He pins Donghun and presses into his hips, drawing his tongue along the side of Donghun’s mouth until Donghun has to throw aside his head for air. Donghun’s limbs are already heavy, slowing down, but he can’t stop it now. He needs to be touched. He wants it easily, would give it easily, but if Yuchan wants to play with him, fine—he’ll wrestle, pull, claw, fight, anything for it. So happily. He reaches up and grabs Yuchan’s throat; Yuchan grabs his. Yuchan kisses him again, with tongue again—for a second that baby overeagerness makes Donghun laugh, but then he’s swept away in it too. He kisses back. Yuchan’s whole body hot and hard on top of him, scrambling, knees and hands in desperate, uncomfortable configurations.

Yuchan digs the heel of his hand into Donghun’s shoulder, and Donghun feels the pressure like a bolt, stinging him in his arm and neck. He shakes it off, but a frustrated cry gets out of him.

“Just _give me_ you…” he growls. He grasps the grinning part of Yuchan’s face. 

Yuchan hesitates for a second, panting into Donghun’s palm. His eyes are wild; his dick grazes Donghun’s thigh in the moment of motionlessness and Donghun feels it in the back of his throat. Yuchan pulls Donghun’s thumb into his mouth and bites at it lightly; he tests the bone with his teeth until Donghun grimaces. He lets go, ducks down, sucks the skin of Donghun’s neck, crushing and bruising, releasing blood under the skin. Donghun wraps his arm around Yuchan’s waist. He reaches down to the band of his own pajama pants but Yuchan beats him there. He feels the elastic roll down, Yuchan’s hand bump along his hip and close firmly around his balls. A fear response like bright light waves through Donghun’s body as the touch, the vicious boldness of it, turns him on; he grows in Yuchan’s hand, pain swelling out of him, good pain. He grunts through his nose for Yuchan’s benefit; Yuchan echoes him in his ear. Donghun digs his fingernails into the back of Yuchan’s thigh. Yuchan’s breath catches a little and he rocks forward. His hand squeezes.

Donghun curses. His body is like a twist of iron, red under his eyes, skin purple and hot, Yuchan somehow constricting every inch of him—the only way out to give back pressure of his own, to keep curling up into the kiss. Yuchan’s lower lip smushes on Donghun’s temple, at his eyelid, at the bridge of his nose. It’s still slippery with shiny red pigment there—and just behind it, his teeth, the warmth of his breath. 

“Fuck, fuck.” Donghun has to slur at Yuchan through the tightness in his core and the spit in his mouth. “Would you touch me already._ Jesus_.”

Yuchan repositions his hand so his thumb can find the base of Donghun’s cock, fingers still lightly hooked around his balls. He knows Donghun’s body like his own by now—why is he waiting?

Except Donghun knows why he’s waiting. And it’s working. The leaden weight pooling at his center of gravity. The way he can feel Yuchan’s body heat on the exposed head of his cock, the way he swells and aches into Yuchan’s clawed hand. He twitches into Yuchan’s wrist and for a split second feels a hammering pulse. Yuchan watches him from under the big glittering wing-cases of his eyelids. He’s biting back an adoring laugh.

Donghun regains his senses enough to take his hands off Yuchan’s thighs and pull him free of his waistband. He cups his palm under Yuchan’s chin and Yuchan spits into it copiously, cackling again. As warm and direct as Yuchan has been menacing and slow, he slides his slick hand down over Yuchan’s shaft. Yuchan flexes and stutters. He lets go of Donghun’s dick to catch his balance as he lists backward.

“No fair,” he laughs. “Ah-ah...” He wrinkles his nose prettily and seethes. Donghun strokes him quickly, casually. For a moment the inner edges of Yuchan’s eyes gather, like he’s squinting to read something in the middle distance over Donghun’s head; but then he calms, sitting on his core steadily, rocking eager into Donghun’s wrist like he can do this forever. Donghun watches Yuchan refocus and get control of his hips. Donghun feels the warm, soft skin of Yuchan’s balls and inner thigh along his forearm as Yuchan bends over him again, bare chest sealing in the heat between them. He dots Donghun’s face again with red, with open-mouthed marks that would be kisses if he could catch his breath to close his lips. 

Donghun pulls Yuchan’s thighs down on top of him until their cocks are trapped together between thrumming stomachs. He wraps his arms around Yuchan’s shoulders but Yuchan slips out of Donghun’s grasp and forces his hands back, holding them over his head. Donghun arches and pushes his erection across Yuchan’s hip, grinning at the happy shiver it draws. Yuchan drops his head into Donghun’s shoulder and returns a thrust. Donghun’s muscles clench all the way down to his spine. The kisses on his throat and shoulders seem to sink beneath his skin. They hit him, they bleed under and gather on his nerves. 

Yuchan sucks up a mouthful of the flesh at Donghun’s chest and bites. A tiny ring of pinching pain, but tongue is there to soothe it. Donghun wriggles up against Yuchan’s stomach, into the hot edge between their bodies. Yuchan clamps his teeth tighter.

“Ah, hey—”   
  
Yuchan doesn’t let go. Donghun feels the spit drying on their dicks as Yuchan grinds against him senselessly, the friction growing too warm, too rough. Yuchan is shaking, swallowing nothing with his teeth still sunk in, drawing air through his nose. Pain sears as deep as Donghun’s ribs, as far as to his armpit, collarbone. He feels Yuchan like an anvil on his chest. There’s good pain below, where their bodies bump together, panicked and clumsy—and bad pain above, over his heart. Donghun can’t breathe without fearing that he’ll tear his skin. He can’t see. The head of Yuchan’s cock is slick against him.

“We need to fuck,” hisses Donghun. Yuchan’s teeth slip when Donghun speaks, gouging. Donghun gasps. He fights Yuchan’s hands at his wrists. Yuchan shakes his head a little and finally pulls away.

“Shit, uh—sorry—you okay?”

“I will be,” Donghun says—he can’t curb the confusion from his voice. “If you’ll just top me.” He laughs, adding, “You little freak.”

“Okay,” says Yuchan. His nostrils flare like he’s been wounded, not Donghun, but he grins breathlessly. “Okay. Yeah. Perfect.” 

Donghun smiles, relieved.

“I’ll get the—let me up—”

Yuchan sits back on his heels. As Donghun moves he catches a glimpse of Yuchan wiping his mouth miserably, lipstick stamped on the ridged skin of the heel of his hand; they smirk at each other. Someone’s singing in the shower.

Donghun rolls onto his side, searching down to the floor for wherever that damn bottle is. He finds it hiding behind the foot of the bed, toppled on its side too, lower—he has to reach farther than he thought. His reach stretches the skin on his chest and it stings. His arm twitches out from under him; he bangs his elbow on the bed frame. Tears well in his eyes and he snorts at himself. Yuchan pulls him back up by the shoulders with a sympathetic laugh.

“Careful, jeez. You got your funny bone?”

Donghun lets the bottle of lube drop into his lap, naked and grinning in embarrassment, cradling his elbow against his stomach. 

“What a mess,” he says. He winces, but he’s thrilled. He loves the little disaster nest they’ve writhed into the bed together. The sheets blush pink where he’s rolled over them. Yuchan chuckles but looks at him with concern, a hand on his arm, a hand under his chin. Donghun kisses him. When he breathes it stings. He must be sweating—the lipstick color has begun to run warm over his ribs. He wipes it away and it’s surprisingly thin—shiny and dark—

“Oh shit, I—”

“Oh shit, you’re—”

Yuchan groans out of his nose.

“—you’re bleeding.” 

Just one of the whitened tooth marks on Donghun’s breast stretches and tears in a tiny wound. The fresh, wet red is almost lost in lipstick. Donghun looks down, mouth slightly ajar, and dabs some away with his fingers; more oozes out. What the fuck, Kang Yuchan, but it’s not too bad—in fact, what should be annoyance flares up in Donghun as something giddier. It’s that same warm wash of love he feels when Yuchan acts out of his age to him, taunting cheerfully for a tug on the ear or a hand at his throat. Donghun beams and swipes his own blood across Yuchan’s cheekbone like frosting from a birthday cake.

Yuchan closes his eyes and moans. His chest is flushed. His eyes blink open huge and watery at Donghun. He takes Donghun’s face between his hands and the bottom drops out of Donghun’s stomach. He kisses Donghun’s neck, nuzzles over his nipple, licks the blood with a sour tongue that burns in the cut.

“You look so beautiful,” says Yuchan. He’s mumbling thickly; Donghun can’t be sure he’s catching every word. “You’re so beautiful. You’re so—my little thing—”

Donghun laughs. He balls the sheet in his hand. “What?”

Yuchan brushes down Donghun’s ribs, into his hip, with a light smudging stroke of his lower lip. Donghun feels Yuchan’s breath at the side of his dick, even the tacky iron-heavy touch of blood with it. It’s weird but warm, animal, like sweat but stronger. He’s not quite hard anymore, but he feels tugged and tingling, wanting it. His chest is wavery with some kind of blind excitement. He doesn’t know what’s going on except that he likes it. Yuchan’s fingers have somehow slotted in between Donghun’s where the stained sheet used to be.

“I mean,” says Yuchan, his voice still rumbly and slurred, “this is like…I….are you still into this?”

“What?” asks Donghun again. “Yeah, of course.”

“This is…”

“Yeah?”

Yuchan smiles painfully. He pushes his thumb gently into the skin below the cut. Donghun lets him do it; bleeds a groove of red encircling Yuchan’s nail. Yuchan breathes out heavily again.

“This is fucking…_doing it_ for me.”

Donghun’s heart leaps. 

“Yeah??”

It’s the first time he’s heard him say something like that. 

He looks at Yuchan’s gory bug-eyed face, at the swollen smear of his open mouth, and has never seen anything lovelier in his life.

“Yeah,” says Yuchan. He rocks forward onto his knees.

“Good,” Donghun manages to say. “Good. Fuck me then.”

Yuchan is on top of him before Donghun can get back the breath that speaking cost him. His calves slide naturally over Yuchan’s hips. He hears the squirt of the bottle, feels a thumb brush down wetly in the shadow of his thigh; hard cock slippery and cold against his ass, _you ready?_ and _yeah duh_ and the head of Yuchan’s dick squeezing into him, whoa and yes and the rest following in a rush. Donghun breathes comfortably, feeling full, and rocks his hips a little to get Yuchan up against the root of his belly. Yuchan stamps his hand blindly around on the sheets by Donghun’s ear; Donghun reaches up to touch it and Yuchan grabs him to bend his arm behind his head. Donghun lifts his other arm freely. The backs of his knuckles dig into the mattress by the crown of his skull while the heel of Yuchan’s hand presses numbingly into his wrist. Yuchan thrusts gasping and Donghun grins as he does it right, hitting where pressure floods upward toward his navel, down into his balls, locking there and floating dizzily. Donghun kicks his hips again, trying to set the pace, but Yuchan is speeding ahead of him.

“You couldn’t start slower—?”

“Yeah, sure,” Yuchan grunts, drags for half a second, then laughs. “Sorry, no—ah, sorry—” He doesn’t slow down. 

“Shut up.” Donghun can hardly see for silent laughing, bubbly and winded. Yuchan is jackhammering uncontrollably with an open, moaning mouth, but it’s worth it. Donghun feels the gliding friction bringing blood back to his cock, filling up unbearably, his shaft against his stomach, rough and running out. Yuchan shoves and Donghun’s shoulder blades bounce on the springs. He shudders smoothly, sticky, scrunches his forehead. And there are the slats of the bunk overhead, and there is Yuchan with his blood-flushed face screwed up cute and murderous, he looks so mean when he fucks, it’s funny. Breath pumps in Donghun’s belly but no air seems to reach his brain. Those sounds are coming out of him.

“Oh, god—fucking slap me in the face—”

“What?” Yuchan shouts, wrinkling his nose.

“I _said_ sl—!”

Yuchan’s open hand catches Donghun’s cheek with a ringing clap that turns the world into streak of white. Donghun whimpers cheerfully and dips his head into the mattress, spinning. Before he feels the five long welts form on his skin Yuchan digs his chin into Donghun’s shoulder, eyes winced shut, a choked sound somewhere in his spasmed stomach. There’s that nasty, slackening surge as Yuchan comes inside him, already ashamed, his forehead so hot and damp on Donghun’s neck.

“_Fuck_,” says Yuchan after a second. Donghun grabs a fistful of Yuchan’s hair and tugs it back and forth. Yuchan whines, mouth clenched in a wicked smile. He flexes oddly over Donghun as if trying to absorb an aftershock. Donghun feels a twinge,_ a let me have that, let me absorb that too_ kind of impulse, but gets distracted by Yuchan pulling out. He keeps his body still and lets all of it hit him at once. Gravity increases on him, then lightens when Yuchan lifts off the mattress to look for a towel. Donghun doesn’t hesitate to whine.

“Come back…”

Yuchan chuckles from across the room, back to Donghun as he wipes himself clean. Donghun kicks his heels on the bed.

“Come _baaack!_”

“Quiet, hyung.” Yuchan puts on a booming action-hero voice. “Or taste my blade.”

“I’ll taste your blade any day of the—”

“You wanna die?” 

“Ooh, _chills_,” mocks Donghun. He flips his body over like a landed fish and buries his face in the pillow with feigned bitterness. Yuchan audibly pauses his rummaging to roll his eyes. 

When Yuchan does return he settles his naked belly on Donghun’s back. Donghun can feel Yuchan’s heart beating heavy through his shoulders and he preens. He wants to make Yuchan’s heart race like that always.

After a moment of nestling warmly together like this, Donghun remembers.

“So you liked that, huh?”

“Liked what?” asks Yuchan with unconvincing sleepiness. 

“When you…when I…” Donghun makes his voice light and sultry. “When I _bled_ for you.”

Yuchan’s core tenses painfully against Donghun’s back.

“Ah—hah—don’t put it like that—” 

“I’ll do it again,” Donghun says, meaning it. He grabs Yuchan’s hand and plays with his fingers. “You can have any part of me, any_thing_ from me, any time, okay? I know what I’m doing. So you can ask.”

Yuchan’s whole body is a single rigid knot. He jerks his hand back and lifts himself onto his elbows, breathing hard.

“I can’t—” he starts. “Um, I don’t know to—exactly—hah…” 

Donghun rolls back over to look at Yuchan. Yuchan smiles as if embarrassed, but his eyes are too wide, almost bulging. Donghun begins to recognize something lost and scared in that pretty young face, and catches himself in the middle of the wrong reaction—annoyance, not pity, simmers in his chest. _Lee Donghun, if you start a fight over this right now…_He needs to backpedal. He makes himself remember what it was like for him so long ago, being new and uncertain. It’s difficult to remember, right? Hasn’t he always been a confident, carefree, sexually accomplished gay? His mouth feels bitter.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Never mind,” says Donghun. He sits up. He offers his cupped palms and Yuchan fits his chin there easily. “You know how to kiss me, don’t you?” 

Yuchan nods. He turns sweet and melty for a moment as he lifts his mouth softly into Donghun’s. He smiles, relaxed. Then he stiffens his spine again and shuffles around for his boxer briefs.

“I gotta go,” he says. “I—have a thing—”

Donghun gathers up the discarded muscle tee before Yuchan can take it. He saddens his eyes shamelessly.

“Kang Yuchan, you do not have a thing.”

“Yes,” Yuchan says, grinning and tugging, “I do.” His determination to leave is enough of a blow that Donghun loosens his grasp and allows the shirt to slip away. Yuchan stands up. Donghun pouts.

“I’ll come back later,” Yuchan says. Donghun scowls when looking up at him wistfully doesn’t seem to be working, but Yuchan has fully regained his composure. “I’ll come back here to sleep, if you want.”

“I want,” says Donghun reluctantly. He accepts an awkward kiss with his temple. He fights a smirk and fails.

“When I’m done with my thing.”

“You don’t HAVE a thing.”

“Gotta go! Bye!”

Yuchan bolts to the door on bare feet but turns around when Donghun calls to him.

“Hey! Yuchan!”

“Yes, hyung!” He cries over his shoulder with such an eager, energetic beam that Donghun pulls the blanket over himself protectively.

Donghun doesn’t know what to say. He presses the blanket to his heart with crossed palms, an exaggerated, enamored gesture.

“_Love you_,” he mouths. “Handsome,” he adds, out loud.

Yuchan rolls his head back with a high-pitched laugh and stumbles from the room. Donghun is satisfied with himself.

The blanket falls into Donghun’s lap and a spot of hot, runny blood darkens it. The soft clot at the top of the tooth mark on his chest has been swiped off again and he’s bleeding slowly. Something makes him happy about looking at it, at his own broken skin—the memory of how Yuchan moaned when he saw it, a deep, unconscious sound he never made before. He picks at the rug with his toes.

He has to hear that sound again.


	3. this is going to be so fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junhee is a slut. Donghun is too excited about Yuchan’s blood thing.

Jun shuffles out of the bathroom directly into Sehyoon’s back. Getting a good look at Junhee in the dark, in the cold corner of the room, dripping on the floor and wrapped in a single undersized towel, Sehyoon scoops him off his feet with a placid smile. 

“Ahh! Hyung!”

Sehyoon grins and bounces Junhee like a baby. The towel slips off and Junhee clutches it over his nipples with his one unpinned arm.

“Hey!”

“Aren’t you cold?” asks Sehyoon, swinging Jun lightly back down onto his feet. Junhee laughs and ruffles his own hair. He huffs and then is quiet. He stares into the middle distance.

“Not really,” he says. “Why are all the lights out? Where is everybody?”

“Gone to bed? It’s pretty late.”

“Well, what are you doing?”

“I’m…you know. Donghun’s using the room.”

“Ahh.” Junhee waggles his eyebrow knowingly and walks stiffly to the kitchen counter, completely naked with his towel over his shoulders, like he’s in a steamy locker room and not a dorm with pulpy walls. The light over the burners catches the fine hairs on his forearm. His smile fades for a second. “Wait, using it with who?”

Sehyoon stares. Junhee stares back. Sehyoon stares harder.

“Oh, right,” says Junhee with baffling surprise. “Yuchan again.”

“Where have you been? Jun-ah?” Sehyoon snaps his finger to spare himself the work of emoting impatience.

“No, I’ve been here,” says Jun absently. “It’s seriously been like a week of this...Sometimes I wonder, should we be worried…”

“I’m out here for snacks,” Sehyoon half-shouts over Junhee’s fussing. Junhee’s expression changes. He pulls his mouth into a tight-lipped smile.

“I’m a snack, huh, hyung?”

Sehyoon rocks back on his heels and grins sluggishly. He watches Junhee tug the corner of his towel between his teeth and twirl his naked body in a circle, using the edge of the counter to steady himself.

“What’s wrong with you,” laughs Sehyoon under his breath. Junhee comes to a giggly, winded halt. Sehyoon steps forward to steady him as his hand disconnects from the counter top mid-sway. Junhee leans into Sehyoon’s shoulder and Sehyoon squeezes his ass. Junhee lets out a happy little musical note from his nose.

“You should eat something too, Jun,” says Sehyoon. “You’re loopy.”

“I’m normal,” says Junhee in aegyo, squirming his head against Sehyoon’s chest. “Normal, normal.”

Sehyoon has to admit that especially after midnight it is fairly normal for Junhee to be wriggling nakedly around the dorm like a horny, distracted piece of spaghetti. Still, he pushes the wet strands of Junhee’s hair away to feel his forehead in mock concern. 

“Ah,” he says. “You’re cute like this. Everything’s done for the day and you have nothing to yell about.”

“Why don’t you give me something to yell about?” croons Junhee. He grabs the ends of his towel and loops it over the back of Sehyoon’s neck. It’s unpleasantly damp, but the cool feels good against the blush rising in Sehyoon’s ears. Sehyoon curls his arm around Junhee’s waist on instinct. Junhee lifts his knee slightly to slide his thigh along Sehyoon’s leg. Sehyoon’s sweatpants feel paper-thin. He gives a reproachful mumble as Junhee gently bites his earlobe. 

“So you’re gonna be like this…” But Sehyoon doesn’t have it in him to pretend he minds. He drops his hand to catch the back of Junhee’s knee and uses it to half-push, half-lift Junhee back against the counter where he came from. Junhee moves his parted teeth to Sehyoon’s chin.

“Like this,” Jun echoes. “Like what?” He flicks his tongue over Sehyoon’s adam’s apple and Sehyoon gulps reflexively. He butts his hips into Junhee’s and gets a fluttery, tickled sound. Partly seated on the kitchen counter, partly shielded by Sehyoon’s arms holding him in place, Junhee reflects the stove light awkwardly in crescent shapes of skin—a couple ribs, a crinkled stomach, a collarbone still dotted with sparkling shower steam. Sehyoon reaches up and rips the wet towel away from his neck, throwing it aside with a exaggerated, manly motion that makes it snap, makes Junhee say _wooh_ and laugh through his fingers. 

“So strong,” says Junhee dreamily, giggling at himself.

“Stop acting stupid,” says Sehyoon. He makes his voice as low and growly as he can. Junhee gets serious and pink-cheeked; his chest rises on a shivery breath. It’s the inhale that makes Sehyoon notice he’s hard now, brushing through his sweats at Junhee’s thigh. He pushes his thumb against Junhee’s lower lip and Junhee pulls it in next to his tongue. Junhee makes his mouth tight around the first knuckle then slides forward to the joint of Sehyoon’s hand. He sucks back slowly, touching the tender nerves under the calluses until Sehyoon feels a tug from the pit of his stomach. Sehyoon draws his hand away and wipes it on the butt of his sweats. Junhee’s hand finds his there. Junhee’s other hand slips up along the inside of Sehyoon’s thigh.

“Should we…” starts Sehyoon. “…We have a couch?”

“What are you talking about,” says Junhee. He’s talking through a smile, his breath tickling the bridge of Sehyoon’s nose. “What would we need that for? We’re not doing anything.” His hand encloses Sehyoon’s dick in a scrunch of soft fabric.

“Ah—”

“Oh, sh—_shh!_”

A wedge of light opens from a nearby bedroom door. Junhee lets go of Sehyoon and whips around, hiding his erection against the cabinets and almost fainting with suppressed laughter. Sehyoon is losing it too—trying not to make any sound, holding in cackles until his nose runs, he sinks to his knees and grabs the towel off the floor. He holds it up weakly to shield Junhee’s naked ass. Then the two of them just freeze, clutching each other hysterically, as if they could avoid detection like homoerotic gargoyles by remaining motionless in the shadowy apartment.

“Yes, hyung!” They hear from the hall. It’s Yuchan. Donghun responds distantly. Sehyoon can’t make out the words. 

Yuchan charges out into the hallway with a frantic laugh, like a drunk being thrown from a bar. He slams the door behind him; he staggers to a halt. Sehyoon can see his eyelids heavy with makeup, his mouth smudged red, his head stuck through the arm hole of a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Yuchan sees Sehyoon and Junhee instantly but pretends not to.

“Yuchan!” Junhee can’t help but call out like a mother. He gets no acknowledgment. Sehyoon shoves his thigh.

After catching his breath for just a fraction of a second Yuchan stumbles, mortified, keeping as close as he can to the wall, the short distance to his room. His door clicks shut. The lights do not go on under it.

“Ah,” murmurs Junhee. He turns back around and slips down with his shoulders to the cabinets. He takes his towel gently from Sehyoon’s hands and covers himself with it. “Did you see that?”

Seyhoon isn’t totally sure what he saw.

“Makeup is fine,” he says slowly.

“No, no, makeup, whatever, obviously,” says Junhee. “But his face was really…”

Sehyoon replays it in his head. He can remember Yuchan’s wild laugh falling like a stone from his face as soon as the door cut off the warm light of the room. He can remember Yuchan’s eyes flicking up under glittery green lids, his smeared mouth hanging open, punch-drunk—then the way he averted his gaze in a panic, rushed away. 

“Yeah, what the fuck? Did Donghun hit him?” Sehyoon keeps his voice low. “No, no, that wouldn’t—”

“No…” agrees Junhee. “Unless…No, I have no idea.”

“He’s just embarrassed?” Sehyoon offers. “Is this the first time he saw us…see him leave?”

Junhee looks aghast.

“Does he think we don’t know?”

That doesn’t track for Sehyoon, but it takes him a second to remember why. _Oh, yeah. Hah._

“No, because yesterday when we all ate together Donghun said—”

(—Something so explicit Junhee interrupts Sehyoon with a blush and outstretched hands.)

“No, no, no, you’re right. But that means something’s going on?”

“Does it?”

“You saw him! Hyung, you saw him, with the—his face like that—what if something’s wrong?”

Junhee begins to fret in earnest. Sehyoon smiles patiently.

“I’ll just…when I go to bed, I’ll talk to Donghun, okay?”

“Ah.” Junhee rubs his forehead. “I don’t like it all of a sudden.” He rises to his feet and finally tucks the towel properly around his waist. 

“I was serious about wanting to eat,” says Sehyoon. He touches Junhee’s wrist. “Stay out here and eat something with me.”

“Okay.”

Sehyoon opens the cabinet and reaches out an opened ramyeon packet with half the brick of noodles still inside.

“You can have this,” he says.

Junhee picks up the pot from the stove, pours out some of the stagnant water, and tops it off with fresh from the faucet, but Sehyoon wrestles it out of his hands. He scowls, dumps out the rest of the rehydrated scallion flakes and gummy egg white residue, rinses it, and puts it back on the burner with clean water. Junhee stares at him.

“What’s your problem?”

“What’s _your_ problem?”

Sehyoon chuckles and shakes his head. He resumes digging around in the cabinet. He’s able to scoop out the last of the bruised mandarins. He lays them out on a row in the counter. One is split and oozing a bit; he rolls that one out of the line. That leaves him three. He starts peeling them slowly while Junhee plops the noodles into the boiling pot. In the three minutes of waiting for the ramyeon to soften Sehyoon catches Junhee sneaking handfuls of rice crust out of the bottom of the rice cooker. 

“You poor waif,” Sehyoon says, laughing. He squeezes Junhee’s shoulders from behind and Junhee keeps munching, only a little abashed.

The door opens again, letting out that same shape of yellowy light. Donghun emerges in pajama pants and a low-cut sweater, which he pulls out from his chest between his forefinger and thumb as if he spilled something on it. He grins excitedly when he sees them.

Sehyoon and Junhee round on him.

“What’s going on,” demands Junhee without hesitation. Sehyoon leans his hips back on the counter with crossed arms to watch. Donghun shuffles close to Junhee, still beaming.

“_Found out what Yuchan likes_,” he sings. “Look at this.”

Junhee hooks his forefinger in the neckline of Donghun’s shirt and looks inside. His expression is stony; Sehyoon squints and cranes his neck, trying to see.

Junhee seizes Donghun by the shoulders and drags him bodily to the open bathroom door, where there is a cool white light on. Donghun puts up no resistance, just stumbling along happily, cackling at Junhee’s consternation. Sehyoon follows them into the bathroom. The mirror looks like a rain-washed bus window, dripping with condensed shower steam. Sehyoon catches his streaked reflection next to Donghun and Jun’s; they look healthy, he notices, and he looks ghoulish. He can see how Donghun’s face and neck are blurred pink with lipstick marks, how his eyes are heavy-lidded and purple-lined.

Junhee lifts Donghun’s sweater up. Donghun fights at his hands for a second, giggly, then concedes. He stands facing Junhee, naked to the waist, grinning expectantly as Junhee looks him over and says softly, “_Oh what the fuck?_”

A hand-sized print of dried blood covers one side of Donghun’s chest, smeared out of a tiny but very much gouged chunk of skin. Tooth marks surround the area with an inflamed and swollen glow. Sehyoon raises his eyebrows and blinks.

“He bit you?” Junhee asks. “That hard?”

Donghun nods gleefully. Sehyoon can’t help but laugh. It’s been a long time since he saw anyone so happy to be bitten.

Junhee swivels his head to look first over one shoulder, then the other.

“Do I need to kill him?” His voice is tender and nervous.

“No, you idiot,” says Donghun. “You don’t understand, he—he has a thing.”

“What—”

“A! You know! _Thing!_” says Donghun. Excitement is making his voice louder than intended. “The blood, it like,_ did it_ for him.”

“But…How can you tell…?”

Junhee’s having a surprising amount of trouble with this. Sehyoon digs his thumb into the dimple at the bottom of the mandarin in his hand, piercing the rind. It’s not hard for him to imagine Chan going feral for Donghun’s blood, for some reason.

“_Park-Junhee-you-know-I-know-a-thing-when-I-see-a-thing!_” snaps Donghun, exasperated. “He went—” Donghun makes a face Sehyoon hopes he never repeats.

Junhee takes his hands off Donghun’s upper arms and rubs his eyes.

“Whoa, but…” Junhee frowns. “Without warning you?”

“Well—”

“It isn’t safe like that! We have to talk to him.”

“Hey,” says Donghun. His voice is heated. “Is it any of your business? I will talk to him. You’ll butt out.”

“_You_,” says Junhee severely, “will just keep letting him act however he wants—”

Sehyoon finishes peeling his mandarin.

“Shut up, you two,” he says. “You both know who needs to talk to him.”

Junhee and Donghun both wheel around to look at Sehyoon with such nasty expressions that Sehyoon laughs. He bites into the segmented fruit like an apple and lets the juice run stinging down his chin.

Junhee groans and pulls out a drawer. He retrieves a brown bottle and a plastic bag of cotton swabs.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he says to Donghun. “It’ll get infected…”

“Who cares?”

“Who _cares?_” Junhee stabs an iodine-soaked cotton swab into Donghun’s chest with unnecessary force; Donghun flinches and cuffs Junhee’s ear.

Sehyoon hears a sizzling hiss from the kitchen. He looks back and sees the pot of noodles bubbling over, steamy foam drooling out onto the burner.

“The water! Jun-ah!”

Junhee looks past Sehyoon’s shoulder and swears. He scrambles out to the kitchen to rescue his snack; Sehyoon takes over Junhee’s place next to Donghun and picks up the dropped first aid. He dabs the dried blood away and gently sticks a band-aid to Donghun’s skin.

Sehyoon feels something weird about it. He remembers Yuchan’s freaked-out, makeup-darkened face in the hall. He thinks he begins to understand some of the problem with the situation. So Yuchan has a thing. Who’s going to help him? Obviously they have to teach him how to be safe. Obviously they have to not gang up on him, but also obviously, they have to bring in Byeongkwan. It's the only way. Junhee has already become fussy and smothering. Donghun will do literally anything Yuchan wants, any time—he’s going to get hurt that way, but it’s going to hurt Yuchan, too. 

“You’re really dumb,” he says under his breath so only Donghun can hear him. Donghun makes sad, offended eyes at Sehyoon.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Donghun says. “This is going to be so fun.”


	4. candy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byeongkwan helps Yuchan out.

“We’ll take turns.” 

Byeongkwan prides himself on—well, a lot of things, but one of them is moving fast. 

Yuchan startled him awake at 2 a.m., peaky and half naked, by clamping a hand over his mouth. _Don’t say anything, don’t wake up Junhee-hyung. But I need to talk to you. _

Now, at 6 p.m.—sixteen hours and several crimes later—they’re alone and ready to go. The alone part is thanks to Sehyoon offering—extremely conveniently, Byeongkwan can’t help but think—to take the others out for hamburgers and a movie. The crimes part? This morning Byeongkwan complained of a headache until a manager dragged him to the clinic down the street. He insisted on bringing a tote full of snacks with him, none of which he had eaten by the time he came back, a single bottle of ibuprofen tablets in hand.

“I didn’t know exactly what to take,” he admitted to Yuchan afterward, slipping his fingernail into a slit in the bottom of a Pringles can and allowing a roll of packaged disposable scalpels to fall out. “So I got everything I could.” He enjoyed Yuchan’s amazement while he pulled gauze and cotton out of Kkokkal Corn, several pairs of nitrile gloves out of shrimp chips, even a pack of hypodermic needles from a box of cookies. 

Now the flavor dust has been wiped from the outside of the vacuum-sealed plastic. The absurdity has transformed somewhat. All the lights are on. Byeongkwan has rolled away the rug, wiped down every surface, and collected a kind of sumptuous summoning circle: the stolen medical implements, restraints, impact toys, vibrators, nail polish, makeup, candles, a bowl of oranges. He feels like a dragon sitting proudly with his horde. Yuchan, meanwhile, sits with his back against the door, knees drawn up to his chin inside his oversized plain t-shirt, eyes boring holes in the leg of the desk. Byeongkwan rubs his scalp and surveys Yuchan warily. 

“Are you comfortable?” he asks, and has to suppress a wince when it doesn’t come out right.

“What?” says Yuchan. “Oh, I’m fine.” He smiles; his face refocuses. He looks up at Byeongkwan. “Take turns?”

“Bottom before you top. If you’re going to be doing this kind of thing to other people, you need to know what it feels like. Are you okay with that?”

Yuchan nods, but Byeongkwan is worried about the mood. Yuchan looks folded up and tiny and pale. Maybe they got a bit carried away with this idea.

“Are you excited?” He tries to sound inviting.

Nothing.

“Are you scared?” 

Yuchan’s eyes lock with Byeongkwan’s.

“A little.”

_Okay,_ thinks Byeongkwan. He fully hates this. His insides feel shrunken and wet and weird. He gets on his knees and scoots close to Yuchan, pushing a path through all the tools and trinkets. He offers his upturned palms; Yuchan wriggles his arms out of his t-shirt and takes Byeongkwan’s hands gratefully. The physical feedback is encouraging. Yuchan’s fingers are warm from being balled inside his armpits.

“Let’s do some fun stuff first,” Byeongkwan says. “Whatever will be relaxing.” Yuchan smiles with a dark, sort of dreamy humor in his face. Byeongkwan wonders why he thinks Yuchan looks more handsome today. Is he scarier? Wasn’t Yuchan always a little scary? Maybe—but not to Byeongkwan.

“I’m just lost,” says Yuchan, that delicately wicked smile still in place. His whole body language changes, becomes loose and languid. He traces his little finger almost imperceptibly over Byeongkwan’s wrist. He talks softly, inflecting like a girl. _“Tell me what to do?”_

Byeongkwan has to bite his lips together to prevent a gasp from escaping. What? He cycles dizzyingly from disoriented to scared to aroused to angry. He recalibrates. He runs the numbers. Yuchan sub? No. Yuchan tricky little bitch?

“You don’t—have to do that,” Byeongkwan says. He shifts his hips slightly, trying to lessen the effect of the lamplight on his lap. 

Yuchan’s body stutters as his eerie smile breaks open into a full-throated laugh. He waves his hands diplomatically, his voice loud and booming again.

“Ah, okay okay. Hyung. I won’t. I thought it would help.” He laughs, wrestles his face into an expression of scholarly interest, then laughs again.

“It—” Byeongkwan wriggles around again. Something about Yuchan’s bizarre behavior is tingling him at the base of his spine. Was it that, for just a moment, Yuchan succeeded in making Byeongkwan want to devour him? Or was it just hot to watch him try? Byeongkwan feels powerfully tempted to find out. “Actually, act however you want.”

Yuchan hums. He lowers his eyelids without softening his gaze. He resumes that darkly humorous face, that face that makes him look so handsome all of a sudden. It chills Byeongkwan a little. He catches himself tracing his tongue along the inside of his lip. He shakes his head.

“You said I would have to feel it first, right?” says Yuchan. His eyes are fixed without glazing over, burning, almost frightening—but his tone is businesslike. “I’m ready now.”

“Okay,” says Byeongkwan. “Why don’t you eat some fruit, and then we’ll start.”

“How does the fruit help?”

“Blood sugar,” says Byeongkwan stupidly, distracted by the flare he feels when Yuchan caresses his fingers slowly, conspicuously, down into the bowl. Byeongkwan can see Yuchan watching him through his eyelashes, trying to catch him squirming when Yuchan cups an orange in his hand with excessive tenderness. Byeongkwan controls his face tightly and Yuchan gives up. He tosses the orange into the air and catches it like a baseball before peeling it messily over his knees. 

Byeongkwan watches Yuchan break the fruit apart.

“If you’re interested in this kind of mood, leading up to it,” he says suddenly, “like if you were me—you could—” He slips his hand under the hand that holds the orange. Grabbing Yuchan’s wrist, he pries away a crescent-shaped segment. It dots golden where the skin strains.

Yuchan’s eyes widen for a moment, but he knows what to do. He tilts his chin; he parts his lips. He lets Byeongkwan place the piece of orange on his tongue; he lets Byeongkwan’s thumb follow the morsel into his mouth. Yuchan’s right cheek twitches in concentration. His jaw moves in a way that makes Byeongkwan think he’ll sink his teeth in, but he doesn’t—Byeongkwan pulls his finger free and Yuchan crushes the fruit with his tongue. He closes his lips, a shiny wet line glinting between them when he swallows. 

“Mmm,” says Yuchan, as if Byeongkwan is explaining an equation on the chalkboard.

“You could—” Byeongkwan takes two orange segments out of Yuchan’s hand and brings them up to Yuchan’s face more forcefully. Yuchan quirks his head up with calculated eagerness. He sucks before Byeongkwan can shove, opens his mouth, blocking with his tongue—lets Byeongkwan’s free hand support his skull, furrows his brow as if to say that’s good—Byeongkwan feels Yuchan’s tongue reach out toward where his fingers meet his palm, pushing juice down over his wrist, and comes back coldly to himself. He wipes his hand on his pants. Yuchan swallows the orange ferociously and catches his breath in a way that sounds like he decided at the last second not to moan.

He dabs his dribbling mouth with his knuckles. He wears the delighted, bloodthirsty look of someone who’s been invited fist-first into a brawl.

Byeongkwan suddenly notices Yuchan is, physically, bigger than him. And that they’re both a little winded now.

“I see,” says Yuchan. “That kind of thing.”

“It’s how I might go about it, anyway,” says Byeongkwan.

They stare at each other. They look at the fruit juice spattered on the floor between them. Then they laugh.

“So what would you do next?”

Yuchan’s mouth is still sweet when Byeongkwan helps him out of his t-shirt and gathers his sticky hands behind his back. He props Yuchan in a seated position against the bedpost, cuffs him there, and kneels beside him.

“Have you done this before?”

“Of course,” Byeongkwan lies. He stretches the nitrile gloves over his fingers and picks up a safety scalpel. He wipes Yuchan’s skin with alcohol.

“Ah, really—” says Yuchan, sounding like Junhee for a moment. He laughs nervously. Byeongkwan stops.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m ready, I’m ready. I’m cool. Look, though, the hair’s standing up on my arms.” He laughs again.

Byeongkwan looks. Yuchan is exaggerating—the goosebumps are slight—but Byeongkwan feels fluttery too. He’s always kind of wanted to try this. He just didn’t think it would be on this gangly jock. Except, wait—

“Wait,” says Yuchan. He grins up at Byeongkwan.

“Oh, wow,” says Byeongkwan. “We’re remembering the same thing.”

The cozy well-lit privacy of the room dissolves against the memory of chilly steam and sweat. 

“When we were trainees together,” says Yuchan, “and you pierced my ears after lights-out in the showers—” 

Byeongkwan braces himself for the muddled waves of embarrassment and fondness. Times have gotten less stupid, but not by much.

“—You said you’d done that before, too.” Yuchan looks at Byeongkwan menacingly, enjoying himself. “But you threw up.”

“_Afterward_,” retorts Byeongkwan. “Afterward. And I had a stomach virus. _You_ cried like a baby.”

“Afterward,” says Yuchan. “And only because you were stabbing around in my face with a safety pin for thirty minutes.”

“That was your fault,” says Byeongkwan, “for not having any earlobes.”

“I couldn’t wear earrings for years after that. I had to let them heal and get them redone by _someone who knows what cartilage is_.”

“_You’re in handcuffs, and I’m pointing a knife at you.”_

“Ah, hyung,” laughs Yuchan. “You’ve always helped me.”

Byeongkwan softly grasps Yuchan’s throat. He can’t fight the smile anymore. 

Yuchan’s eyes narrow cutely. Now they’re having fun.

“Just promise not to throw up this time.”

Byeongkwan digs his gloved fingers in, feeling the racing pulse in Yuchan’s neck.

“If you promise not to cry for your mom.”

Yuchan pretends to spit off to the side. He flicks his eyes over the scalpel in Byeongkwan’s hand.

“Do it,” he says.

Yuchan’s tough-guy acting is so comical, so exaggerated, Byeongkwan worries he’ll hurt himself holding in the laugh. His mouth feels like it’s going to rip open.

“Wait,” he gasps. His eyes are watering. “At least spit for real, oh my god. We’re teaching you kink over here.”

Yuchan’s ears turn bright pink. His nostrils flare as he clamps his lips shut over an embarrassed smirk, apparently concentrating.

He launches a mouthful of hot spit directly at Byeongkwan’s face. He misses, showering the linoleum over Byeongkwan’s shoulder, but Byeongkwan balks. A pleasant shudder moves throughout his body, and he lets Yuchan laugh triumphantly.

“Cut me already! Or are you scared?”

“I’m not scared, idiot,” says Byeongkwan. 

He gently pinches a small mound of skin from Yuchan’s upper arm between his fingers, and, not daring to breathe, shallowly nicks the fattiest part. 

Yuchan never blinks, but Byeongkwan can feel him swallow a flinch. Blood finds its way to the surface of Yuchan’s skin and rolls down in one tailed bead, not even reaching to the elbow.

“How was that?”

“Good,” breathes Yuchan. “It hardly hurt—” He twists his head to the side to watch the blood droplet quiver on his arm, and Byeongkwan can see a luxurious expression unfurl over his face.

“Can you squeeze it a little? Can you get more?”

Byeongkwan works three, four, five bigger drops of blood out of Yuchan’s skin; they swell darkly, touch one another, then collapse together in a single splash of red.

“Cool.”

“How does that feel?”

“Good,” says Yuchan. “I’m feeling that thing now, the—what’s the word—endorphins? Those.”

“Nice,” says Byeongkwan. He swipes the blood onto his middle fingers and paints it around, trailing up Yuchan’s shoulder. Up over his throat, his Adam’s apple, his chin—_oh, wow_. The color comes alive across the flush-tinted arc of Yuchan’s skin. Every stroke begins like velvet, full and deep—reddens until it shimmers, as if trembling at its own brightness—then fades, yellowing and browning like smoggy dusk as it smears into a film and dries, living then dying. 

Byeongkwan stops the trail of already-congealing blood just short of Yuchan’s mouth; Yuchan tongues out hungrily to taste it. Byeongkwan holds out his hand.

“Lick.” He can’t help himself.

Yuchan casts Byeongkwan a sidelong, “are you kidding?” sort of glance. Then, sighing, he licks the glove. Byeongkwan’s palm tickles as Yuchan’s tongue flutters over it. Nerves wake up in his hand, in his forearm. In his center. Yuchan lolls his head upright to giggle at Byeongkwan, a smudge of his own blood in the corner of his mouth.

“That’s fun,” he says. His face is rapt. Byeongkwan can feel Yuchan’s eyes on every muscle he moves.

“What else do you want to try?”

Yuchan thinks for a moment.

“This is pretty,” he says slowly. “It’s…delicious in a way, right? But it didn’t hurt that much. I want to see what…stuff that hurts more…is like.”

Byeongkwan smiles.

“I can make it happen.”

He frees Yuchan, who sits up, rubbing his wrists even though the cuffs are gentle. Byeongkwan opens his mouth to speak, but Yuchan’s attention has drifted. He presses his fingers around the cut on his arm, even picks at it to disrupt the scabbing; lets blood out, fills his nail beds with it, embellishes the trails Byeongkwan has painted on his body. He’s far away. He’s wandering the arid Mars of his own skin.

_Didn’t he slip and fall on island rocks while playing as a kid? Didn’t he crouch by the tide pool, fingering the slick edge of the jagged stone that sliced him, secretly squeezing his knee to make sure the blood rose out, smearing it up and down his shin until his mother screamed at him to come inside? Didn’t he nick himself learning to shave under his chin and spread the blood up to his temple, make a barrel with his fingers and a hammer with his thumb, and pretend to shoot his reflection in the head? Were these things he did secretly? Was he scolded?_

Yuchan looks up at Byeongkwan furtively. Byeongkwan does his best to look back at him with encouragement and pride.

“You ready?”

Yuchan nods. His smile comes cautiously back.

Byeongkwan grabs Yuchan by the ankles to scoot him over to the middle of the floor, in among the dragon’s horde. Yuchan laughs and follows his lead. Byeongkwan sifts through his collection and separates out the impact and sensation things: the Junhee flogger, the Sehyoon paddle, the little whip, the riding crop, the tickler, the pinwheel.

“How did you get all this stuff?” Yuchan asks. “There’s so much…”

“I got a lot of it way back when,” Byeongkwan says with a shrug. “When people paid less attention.”

“What about the newer things? Or what if you want something else?”

It’s really not that hard if you use a VPN and a pre-loaded credit card and maybe also have had a secret mail stop near the university for almost ten years, but Byeongkwan chooses to smirk mysteriously.

“Let’s try some out,” he says. “Like an ice cream shop, taste a bunch and see which ones you like.” He delicately pushes the hem of Yuchan’s shorts away from his knee. Yuchan twitches back, but then smiles, eyebrows quirked. He lets Byeongkwan rest his hand on the stretched muscle of his leg.

“You just want to hit me, don’t you?” he says with that loud entertainer’s voice.

Byeongkwan snorts.

“You got me.”

Yuchan wriggles his shoulders coquettishly, looking up at Byeongkwan through his lashes again.

“Just show me all of them, then.” He dips into that dainty, entreating tone again before seeming to think better of it. He shakes the hair out of his face and pulls his shorts up further, proffering his whole thigh.

Byeongkwan feels the heady rush of power and importance again. He wishes Sehyoon was here to level him out. It’s as if Byeongkwan and Yuchan are both children in this dangerous play space—a game more serious than they’re pretending it is. It’s like egging your younger friend on to do something forbidden, like stealing their sister’s bras or exploring the medicine cabinet, that makes you feel wickedly good in a way you can’t yet understand. Byeongkwan feels tempted to push limits, to lose control of himself. For a moment, he feels like they need an adult.

“Pain comes in different flavors,” he hears himself say. “So let’s just move down the line.” His free hand darts for the flogger and Yuchan tenses. Giddy surprise flashes over Yuchan’s face as Byeongkwan shows him how to hold it out at arm’s length; how to swing it down for a dull thud that makes Yuchan yawn, how to snap it for a sting that makes him bite his tongue.

“Give me something worse,” says Yuchan, and Byeongkwan tosses the flogger aside as useless. He moves on to the whip, which Yuchan endures with humorous curiosity. Yuchan doesn’t sag or fade like Junhee when the lashes land—he flinches silently, like a soldier, his eyes wide and ravenous for detail. He asks for it harder until, when it’s done, he allows himself to lean back on his elbows with a sore whine that gives Byeongkwan a kick of satisfaction. Then, just as quickly, he rights himself, panting happily. He has the vicarious greed of a kid watching an older sibling play a video game—immersed, determined to get his turn. It gives Byeongkwan the irresistible urge to stall, to start another level. He reaches for the paddle, but Yuchan waves him away.

“I think…” He swallows, and Byeongkwan realizes Yuchan is out of breath. He looks at the tiger-striped welts he’s made in Yuchan’s thigh, a scientific gradient: light pink grooves that deepen as they move closer to the knee, ending with a white-and-red prickled burn that sears and oozes heat.

“I think sharp pain is the best,” Yuchan says. “Stuff that stings. Stuff that cuts and makes you want to cry out, that’s…” He struggles for the words to describe it. “I don’t know, just better. It’s more interesting. It’s scarier. It’s harder to bear.”

Yuchan definitely looks handsome now. The silky leg of his basketball shorts is hiked up as far as his hip; he crouches shrewdly on the floor, weight on one arm. His mouth hangs slightly open, making his whole body look bigger and more solid. With his shirt off, Byeongkwan can see the muscles growing in his chest and shoulders, too. Drying blood muddies a path from his upper arm to his throat. His gestures are easygoing but too graceful to be unconscious. Byeongkwan recognizes it because he does it too—Yuchan is posing himself, trying to be noticed. And it’s working.

“I have more sharp things,” says Byeongkwan. He picks up the crop and gets close to Yuchan. He sets his jaw dangerously—he startles Yuchan with a flick, as if aiming for the face—he slows his hand and draws the end across Yuchan’s neck instead. Yuchan swallows on reflex, but his face is vague. Then, he closes his eyes. He turns in toward the folded leather bit, pushing against Byeongkwan’s touch like a cat knocking its face on an affectionate hand. He parts his lips beautifully. Byeongkwan feels a twisting in his gut, imagining anticipation crawling painfully over Yuchan’s skin—expecting a shudder that doesn’t come. Yuchan’s eyes flutter open.

“I don’t feel anything when you tease like that,” he says. “I’m imagining…what Junhee-hyung would feel. I’m imagining…” He shifts his hips exactly the way Byeongkwan did earlier, finding a less revealing light. His voice is feminine and distant. He looks at Byeongkwan steadily. “…Imagining I’m you.”

Byeongkwan lets out a low growl. He wants to grab Yuchan now, to sink in and tear him to shreds. He’s just a heartbeat short of full fight-or-flight. He seizes Yuchan by the upper arms and stares into his face, trying to catch a glimpse of what the hell is going on in there. Feels tacky blood on his palm, and with it a faint nausea, a faint arousal. Byeongkwan is naked here, and Yuchan can see it.

Yuchan’s pulse races visibly in his throat. His eyes are wide and wary. Then he remembers to smile.

“I want to try it,” he says.

God, Byeongkwan can just about hear Yuchan’s heart. Sympathy softens him, but his skin already aches. He’s afraid of what comes next, though he entirely got himself into this. 

He’s really not good with the receiving end of pain.

“Good. Let’s take a break first, okay?” he says. His mouth is dry, but his voice comes out smooth and light. “We can clean up.”

Yuchan finds some antiseptic wipes and tears the ridged foils carefully, shaking each one like a sauce packet first. He dabs the dried blood from his shoulder, bit by bit, and observes the yellowy smudges on the napkins with keen disgust. Byeongkwan tries to hastily, unobtrusively eat an orange. When he bites down, juice jets out of his mouth and lands with a loud _splat_ on the floor between Yuchan’s feet. Yuchan looks up.

“Hyung, you good?”

Byeongkwan shoots him a nasty look.

“I meant to do that.”

“Ah, I get it,” Yuchan teases, sopping up the orange juice with a bloodstained wipe. “Marking your territory.”

“You’re nobody’s territory, Kang Yuchan.”

Yuchan looks delighted.

“So…I can really have a turn now?” He picks up an unopened paper packet that contains a single-use scalpel. He twirls it between his knuckles like an exam-taker with a pencil.

“Jesus,” says Byeongkwan. “I know what I said, but please resist the temptation to kill me.”

Yuchan laughs brilliantly, even flicking his tongue over his canine tooth, but pulls it together.

“Sure thing.” His eyes are diabolical. 

“Ohh, I regret,” Byeongkwan moans. He rests his head against the bedpost, looking sidelong at Yuchan, who appreciates his performance with a smile. He crosses his hands over his very actually churning stomach. “I regret many things in my life…”

“Oh, hyung,” says Yuchan flatteringly. “I believe in you. Kim Byeongkwan is cool and brave, no matter what.”

“I take it back,” says Byeongkwan. “You’d better kill me.”

Yuchan chuckles through his nose and approaches Byeongkwan, unopened scalpel still curled in his fist. Byeongkwan braces his hands against the floor before he can stop himself. He has to release the tension in his chest with a long, slow, whistling breath. Yuchan looks faintly concerned.

“Just go ahead,” Byeongkwan says. He pulls up his sleeve to uncover his shoulder. He fixes his eyes on the air past Yuchan’s ear and tries to adopt a coaching tone. “But if you’re going to cut on me, I want to see you at least put in some effort to look cool. None of this grinning like a maniac, okay? Intimidate me. Make me want you to fuck me up.”

Yuchan has already wedged his thumbnail in the corner of the scalpel’s wrapper, but at Byeongkwan’s words he pulls away. He toys with the little paper flap he’s made. He peers over his shoulder, back at the pile of pretty and painful things.

“Can I…get ready for a second?”

“Um…”

Byeongkwan refocuses on Yuchan. He swears he can see a fully-formed bead of sweat on Yuchan’s forehead. He reaches up and grabs Yuchan’s chin to stop him swiveling away.

“Hey. Is there something else you want to tell me? About last night?” 

Yuchan’s eyes sparkle before he forcefully gulps and dulls his gaze. He raises his hand to brush Byeongkwan off, but drops it. He rests his chin in Byeongkwan’s palm, as if it’s hard for him to support his head alone. Then, he looks over his shoulder again. He doesn’t seem capable of speech right now.

“Let’s have fun,” says Byeongkwan, thinking fast. “See that silk scarf? You blindfold me. You do what you need to do. Five minutes. But don’t let me lose track of you, and I’m uncovering my eyes when we start, got it?”

Yuchan nods fervently and rises lightly to his feet. He brings the scarf; he wraps it over Byeongkwan’s eyes with absolute tenderness, like a puppy with a bird in its mouth. The room goes purply red through the shimmering weave of the cloth, and Byeongkwan makes himself anxiously comfortable against the side of the bed. He waves his hand over his face, reassured that he can see in shadows. Still, he strains through the sound of his own heartbeat to hear Yuchan rustling around. Yuchan crouches and gets still.

“Hyung,” he says. “I’m thankful that you’re helping me. This is…”

Though Yuchan tried to mask it with his voice, Byeongkwan hears the dried crust breaking off the cap of a nail polish bottle. He can barely hold back a smile. _So that’s what he meant, get ready…_

“You did the right thing to come to me,” Byeongkwan says. He quirks his head to tilt his ear toward Yuchan. “It’s better to learn from someone you trust than from…I don’t know, strangers. Your hyungs just want you to be safe.”

“Where would I have found strangers?” says Yuchan offhandedly. Byeongkwan can hear him focusing with his tongue between his teeth.

“The internet? I don’t know.”

The sound of Yuchan softly blowing. Acetone smell. Byeongkwan feels…something it’s hard for him to feel. A warm sadness, a kind of twinge of recognition. Also, he just knows Yuchan’s getting varnish all over his nail beds, and it hurts him.

“Where did you learn this stuff?” Yuchan asks. His enunciation is dulled at the edges, as if he isn’t bringing his lips fully together.

“I taught myself.”

“What about Junhee-hyung?”

Byeongkwan fights the wash of bitterness over his tongue. 

“Junhee-hyung…learned from strangers.”

Yuchan swoops close and releases the loose knot of the scarf from Byeongkwan’s eyes. The silk slips away with a cool, pleasant rustle, like a sigh.

“Wooh, yeah,” says Byeongkwan. Goodbye, bitter thoughts of strangers. “You can fuck me up now.”

A rose petal lip tint spreads thick and syrupy over Yuchan’s mouth, pooling in the corners, feathering out like broken ice in the creases of a shy smile. His small, flat fingernails are sticky red, already gathering lint and puckering unevenly. With that and his red hair, he looks wild, disheveled and sugary-sweet, like a cherry candy melted on a car seat in the summer. He looks fucking _hot. _

This was a great idea.

“Is this okay?” Yuchan asks. He shifts his weight from knee to knee.

“Yep,” says Byeongkwan. “Keep it on the upper arm for now. Don’t forget to sanitize my skin.”

Yuchan grins, sending another drop of excess lip tint squishing into the corner of his mouth.

“Hey,” warns Byeongkwan. “Remember to look cool.” 

Yuchan clears his throat and nods soberly. He peels away the wrapper on the scalpel and runs an alcohol swab over Byeongkwan’s arm.

Byeongkwan’s stomach turns again. He’s still scared. He focuses on the rounded, glistening red of Yuchan’s mouth; it soothes him, maybe because it looks like a goddamn doctor’s office lollipop. Maybe because of the miserable affection rising in his throat whenever he looks Yuchan’s way. He’s watching Yuchan become something, by accident, by choice, he isn’t sure. Is it temporary? Is it growth? Is he meant to see? But Yuchan is showing him.

The scalpel brushes close to Byeongkwan’s arm. He cant help it—he screws up his face. Yuchan looks good, the pretty color of his lips, fingers moving gingerly with their wet and gummy nails—but Byeongkwan’s eyes squeeze shut. _Fuck. _

“Here,” says Yuchan in a low voice. “I need both my hands, but—uh—grab my thigh.” He shoves his knee forward as he adjusts the longitude of the blade. His thigh is grooved and raw and he offers it so calmly. Desperately, Byeongkwan takes it. He feels a clench in Yuchan’s torso, but he can’t let go. He lets out an apologetic squeak and loathes himself.

“On three,” says Yuchan. He moves into a protective position over Byeongkwan, hiding him in his shadow with oversized shoulders, as if sheltering him from something. Byeongkwan feels the warmth thrumming off of Yuchan’s naked chest. His own breath comes in shallow jerks. He closes his eyes again.

“One, two…”

“Don’t kill me,” hisses Byeongkwan through gritted teeth.

“Three.”

Byeongkwan feels the sting. Yuchan grunts as Byeongkwan claws into the flayed skin of his leg—then he makes a different sound.

Byeongkwan wrenches his eyes open. He was scared he would get dizzy, but he doesn’t. He finds the cut across his deltoid—it’s long but shallow, restrained, perfectly straight. He lets go of Yuchan’s thigh. He feels a rush, like a window opening in a stuffy room, like cool air—he feels elated, steadied. Blood starts to condense in gooey dribbles and gets brighter as it rises, incandescing. _Ooh._

Yuchan falls back on his heels. With dreamlike control, he stows the scalpel safely away. He sweeps his hand over the score on Byeongkwan’s shoulder and cups his bloodied palm to Byeongkwan’s face; his other arm supports Byeongkwan firmly by the waist. Yuchan’s whole body seems to ripple like a flag, gasps swaying him from his mouth to the base of his spine. Byeongkwan feels himself shaking, but it’s a good shaking, a warm and responsive tremor. Yuchan’s body is on his and Yuchan is so big and Yuchan is holding him so carefully. Yuchan is tasting his blood, transferring blood to Byeongkwan’s jaw with something that cannot be called a kiss.

Yuchan lets his head drop onto his shoulders. He looks pallid and electrified. His skin is hot. A rare feeling drifts by—Byeongkwan almost wants to let Yuchan overpower him, to sweep him away—but he keeps himself grounded. He has to stay.

“How are you doing?”

Yuchan thumbs Byeongkwan’s shoulder drunkenly; his sweat salt stings its way through the high.

“God,” says Yuchan. His voice is heavy, but he finds his way to the surface with Byeongkwan. “It’s like…” He laughs. “It’s like it’s not even just happening in my dick, you know? It’s my _brain_, it’s _everything_, it’s…My whole _face_ is on fire. I took something from you…I feel like twice myself, it’s…the best.”

Byeongkwan beams.

“_Right?_”

Yuchan blinks. He watches Byeongkwan’s blood charge through the creases in his palm. He curves his wrist down so a dark droplet can form on the tip of his little finger, which he touches to Byeongkwan’s lower lip.

“How are—are you okay? You looked—”

“I’m great,” says Byeongkwan. “You did great. The cut was perfect. Not too deep. I’m proud of you.”

“Ahhh,” says Yuchan very quietly. He rests his head in the crook of Byeongkwan’s arm, just for a second—then he pulls himself upright and tosses his hair from side to side, as if ringing the loud bell of his laugh.

“I’m proud of you, hyung,” he says, grinning. “You were brave. Thanks.”

“Fuck it,” says Byeongkwan. “Give me something else. Give me—the oranges. Yeah, that sounds good. Make it burn.”

“Oh shit!” says Yuchan excitedly. He grabs the chewed orange pieces from the corner of the bowl, one in each hand. The sweet wet shreds still clinging to the bitter rind. He pauses.

“This can’t be sanitary, right?”

Byeongkwan snarls.

“Before I change my mind…”

Yuchan moves quickly. Byeongkwan feels the acid spark over the gouge in his skin, sizzling faintly. He seethes a little, groans for Yuchan’s benefit. It’s orange, not lemon, so the burning is gentler…The prickling feeling still sears through Byeongkwan’s other senses, like insoluble static. It wears him out.

Yuchan plays the orange peel cautiously on Byeongkwan’s cut. He uses the corner like an artist angling for a particular stroke. The pain moves rhythmically, almost imperceptibly, under Yuchan’s hand. It feels…

“You’ve got the right idea,” says Byeongkwan. His voice is tighter than he wants it. He leans his head back to stretch out his neck. Explaining takes too much out of him. “You have a natural sense for this shit, huh?” 

Byeongkwan winces and Yuchan’s eyes snap to his face.

“So fucking good,” Yuchan mumbles. “That expression you do…”

“When you hurt me? What, this?” Byeongkwan does it again, aided by realistic conditions—his forehead crumpling, his lips twitching apart. He can feel his pulse throbbing in the open wound.

Yuchan inhales through his nose.

“Is that messed up?” he asks. “That I like that? That I like making you do that?”

“No,” Byeongkwan says. “It’s absolutely part of it.”

Byeongkwan notices himself tremble a little. His shoulder keeps cramping as the juice works its way under his skin, no longer thinned by the slowing blood. The hairs on his arms have begun to rise. He thinks he can go a little longer, but he suddenly isn’t sure. He rests hard on the bedpost. His arm annoys him, like an insect bite. He wants to claw it apart.

Yuchan sees. He throws the piece of orange aside. 

“Okay, I’m done,” Yuchan says. He sounds strained. “You’ve had enough.”

“I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough,” snaps Byeongkwan, but Yuchan is already soaking cotton balls in saline. Byeongkwan relaxes as the solution stings then flushes the acidity away.

“Want a band-aid?”

“I…” 

Yuchan is already sticking a bandage on his arm with the air of an assistant coach in the bleachers.

“Sure,” says Byeongkwan.

Yuchan wipes his hands with more of the wet napkins. He’s smiling to himself, eyes arching upward happily. He bobs his head as if to an inaudible song. His motions are loose and giggly. The fierce control of moments ago has entirely dissolved.

“Do you want to do anything else?”

“No,” says Yuchan. “Not right now, I just—”

He scoops Byeongkwan up into his arms, clumsily, roughly, briefly—Byeongkwan doesn’t have time to protest before he’s already let go. Yuchan slithers down to cool his face and palms against the floor. Byeongkwan turns his head to the side to look at him. For all the fresh muscles in his shoulders, Yuchan looks dainty and weak. His mouth is still like a crushed flower, rosy, blurred. His eyes rest lightly shut. His cheeks are pale with peaks of hyperventilated pink. His ears and nostrils blush, too. The serene pose of a sleeping princess is betrayed by his fingers tapping rapidly against the floor.

Byeongkwan laughs softly at him. He gets on his hands and knees and lays his head against Yuchan’s swayed back.

“You don’t have to try everything at once, kiddo,” he says. “You’re doing great.” 

Yuchan whines and giggles at the same time.

“I feel crazy!” he says. His voice is big, but he is tiny now.

“That’s okay,” says Byeongkwan. “As long as you feel good, too.”

Yuchan shifts and Byeongkwan moves to let him roll onto his back. He puts his hands under his head and looks up at the ceiling. He takes his hands out from under his head and inspects the disastrous globs of polish sticking to his fingernails.

“I do feel good.”

“That’s good.”

“And…the others…” Yuchan says slowly. “Will they think…it’s okay?”

Byeongkwan imagines Junhee’s face when he finds out Yuchan has a sadist streak. He smirks. He desperately wants to be the one to break the news.

“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Yuchan folds his hands back under his neck. He rolls his head aside to look intently at Byeongkwan.

“Donghun-hyung…” he begins, but trails off. Byeongkwan knows what he means.

“Donghun-hyung adores you,” says Byeongkwan. “He’d let you get away with murder. It’s better that you came to me.”

“Since you hate me so much?” Yuchan flashes his teeth.

“Correct. Punk.”

Byeongkwan absently rubs Yuchan’s abs. Yuchan chuckles and flexes. Jesus, since when is he working out that much?

“I’m gonna have to keep an eye on you,” he says.

“Hyung, and I’m not even joking—seriously, please do.”


	5. complication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some bickering as the BDSM polycule tries to figure out how to adapt its structure.

Yuchan is asleep in his room. Yuchan is _very_ asleep. He sleeps with the dead exhaustion of a twenty-year-old jock, blanket up over his chin, color washed from his face. Nothing will wake him until morning.

Still, Byeongkwan closes the door cautiously. He goes back to his and Jun’s room and shuffles all the bloody gauze into a garbage bag, sprays the floor with biocide, seals the used sharp objects inside an empty preserves jar. He wraps the whole jar in a wad of opaque tape to hide the contents. He throws that in the garbage, too. He rolls the rug back out.

The others will be back from their movie soon.

Byeongkwan wants food and a shower. He feels ancient, somehow, aware of how his bones are propped together in his body. He wanders out to the kitchen and is faintly surprised to realize none of the lights are on. Night fell a while ago.

He’s done a lot of things in life, but never something quite like that. The sense of power, of importance, is contaminated with dire responsibility. He finds himself going over Yuchan’s expressions in his head. Which were approving? Which were dangerous? What did he mean when he twitched like that? Why grinning one moment and listless the next? And when did young, hard-angled beauty come crawling from the creases of this wince, that smile? When the fuck did Kang Yuchan get hot?

The oozing lip tint comes back, vividly, to mind.

_God, what if I’m fucking this kid up worse?_

Byeongkwan pushes back the thought. He’ll just tell Sehyoon. He’ll get a gut check. He’ll get reassurance and, with any luck, a blessing.

Byeongkwan’s stomach grinds nothing over nothing, over orange seeds. Oh, he’s just feeling weird because he hasn’t eaten.

Heavy footsteps pound a path up the hollow concrete stairs to the apartment door. Byeongkwan can hear Junhee talking animatedly through the walls. It’s the deep and booming voice he lapses into when he’s had a beer, the voice that startles with its brusque fatherliness. Until you hear the shit he says. 

Byeongkwan arranges himself coolly against the kitchen counter, head ducked toward his phone, ensuring his biceps are in full view. 

Sehyoon shoulders his way into the room. A ball cap shades his face from the yellow streetlight; he swings a plastic bag around his wrist. Behind him, Donghun and Junhee hang on each other, laughing loudly. Byeongkwan’s heart stutters when the hyungs pile in over the threshold. What should he say?

“Why are you standing in the dark?” Sehyoon asks cheerfully. He kicks his shoes off and punches on the kitchen light. He crinkles around in the bag to find a smushed oblong of foil. He passes it to Byeongkwan; it’s a cold, soggy hamburger wrapped up in a heap of broken french fries, and it’s perfect. Byeongkwan lets out an appreciative groan.

“God, I love you.”

Sehyoon gives a lazy, shy smile.

“You didn’t eat here?”

“Forgot,” says Byeongkwan thickly, already chewing.

Donghun deposits an unsteady Junhee onto the sofa in a giggly sprawl. Junhee scoots back over the cushions clumsily until his t-shirt comes untucked. Donghun makes a lunge for his exposed stomach; Junhee shrinks away with a hysterical wail. 

“You brought me a wet hamburger and a pair of shouting drunks,” Byeongkwan says. 

“But now…you have your _very own_ wet hamburger and…shouting drunks,” Sehyoon says serenely. Byeongkwan feels his eyebrows twitch and eats with focus. 

“How was the movie?”

Sehyoon looks at Junhee, who returns a significant glance.

“Chan…” Donghun says, oblivious, still breathless from laughing. “Where’s Yuchan?” He pulls himself off Junhee and starts shuffling toward the closed door of Yuchan’s room.

“Sleeping!” says Byeongkwan. He swallows too fast; his whole chest cramps and sears. “Don’t—_guh_—hyung, he’s asleep. Don’t go in there.”

“Don’t bother him, don’t bother him!” hisses Junhee. But his nostrils flex in a suppressed smile. 

“Ah…” Donghun turns on his heel bemusedly. He falls onto his elbows against the back of the sofa, head sunk so low his hair tickles Junhee’s flushed cheek. Their eyes meet and the two of them and start giggling again. It’s when Junhee tangles his fingers dreamily in the drawstrings of Donghun’s hoodie that Byeongkwan feels the need to clear his throat.

“Hey, guys?”

“Yeah?” says Donghun, but deliberately turns away from Byeongkwan, prowling closer to Junhee instead. 

“I wanted to—hyung! We need to talk!”

Donghun slumps back and wheels around. His eyes flare open in annoyance.

“What?”

Junhee elbows him.

“Ah! What!”

Sehyoon moves close to Byeongkwan.

“Let’s go to our room,” he murmurs, indicating the farthest room from Yuchan’s, which he and Donghun share. “Everybody, this way. You two—“

Byeongkwan turns his head toward Sehyoon in slight surprise. Junhee is already pulling himself together admirably, wriggling out from under Donghun with a long-suffering sigh. Donghun sits back on his heels, looking confused, petulant, pitiful.

“_What_,” Donghun whines a third time. The sincerity has evaporated from his innocence. Now he’s just playing dumb because he’d rather spend his buzz feeling up Junhee than addressing the maknae-shaped silence in the room. _I mean,_ thinks Byeongkwan, _wouldn’t we all._ The task of chewing the hours-old hamburger had kept Byeongkwan’s nervousness at bay, but now it comes somersaulting back, churning in his stomach with chunks of barely-food-grade beef. For some reason, he feels like he’s waiting outside a teacher’s office for a scolding.

Junhee makes it to the doorway first and stands there with his arms crossed while Donghun, Sehyoon, and Byeongkwan file in. His cheeks are still pink but he has managed to come up with a severe expression.

Donghun sits heavily on the bottom bunk and hugs Sehyoon’s pillow, squishing his face between his fists and glaring.

Sehyoon shuts the door. He looks at Byeongkwan expectantly. 

“Ah, so…”

Byeongkwan wants to leave. He is acutely the youngest for a moment. He looks to Sehyoon, whose deadpan barely hides a pleasant, patient amusement. He looks at Junhee, at Donghun—they’re both watching Sehyoon too. Not Byeongkwan—Sehyoon, tapping his foot lightly on the floor, smiling distantly, waiting for someone to speak. The confusion is unbearable.

“We have to talk about Yuchan,” says Byeongkwan. Sehyoon doesn’t blink, but the placid smile bursts out like weak sunlight on one of those almost-sunny gray days. Imperceptibly.

The others turn to Byeongkwan with wide, vague eyes. Junhee folds a hand melodramatically over his chest and sinks down on Sehyoon’s bed next to Donghun; Donghun hits him in the ribs and he doubles over with an involuntary grin.

They speak at the same time. 

“No, we don’t,” says Donghun.

“We know,” says Junhee. Then, still clutching his side and wheezing, faint confusion twists his forehead. “But—we were going to tell _you_—” He frowns up at Sehyoon. “You already told him?”

Sehyoon shakes his head.

“Nope.”

“You knew?” Byeongkwan asks him. “This happened less than a day ago and you’re telling me all of you knew?”

Junhee avoids Donghun’s gaze awkwardly. Sehyoon just smiles. 

Byeongkwan sighs. He can’t help but feel a dull twinge of disappointment. He wanted this conversation to be more fun.

“Yuchan told me,” he says. “Last night.”

Donghun’s eyebrows rise. He pulls his face out of Sehyoon’s pillow to look at Byeongkwan with warm-cheeked interest. Byeongkwan senses something like subdued aggression in the set of Donghun’s jaw; rather than unnerving him, it gives him courage.

“He came to me and asked me to help him,” Byeongkwan continues. “So I did.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” demands Donghun, propping himself on his elbows.

“We just talked,” says Byeongkwan hastily. “At first. We went through what happened. And tonight, we—I showed him some basic things he could try. You know, how to…play with pain, with blood. _Safely_,” he adds, seeing horror erupt in Junhee’s face.

Donghun is hard to read for a moment, but that last word doesn’t lessen Junhee’s consternation.

“You—” Junhee’s voice is a dark, unsteady murmur. “You just took him on like that? To teach him how to—to _encourage_ that kind of thing—without telling us? Without _telling_ us? Without—” He clucks his tongue and casts a look around the room. “With just you to guide him, how do you think he’ll turn out? Seriously?”

Byeongkwan weathers an unexpected sting in the part of his chest where his pride lives. He stares Junhee down haughtily; he holds his position. _Don’t you trust me? Me?_

Junhee’s grave expression changes, the parental disappointment lifting slightly as he raises his eyes to Byeongkwan.

“But…How did he do?” he asks softly. The tipsy flush in his cheeks flares dark again. 

Byeongkwan grins. He crouches by the edge of the bed. Before he can help himself, he pulls Junhee’s chin into his palm. Sehyoon and Donghun look wearily at each other; Byeongkwan tries not to mind, but loosens his grasp with a dull throb of self-consciousness.

“He was great.”

Donghun makes a sound. Junhee forgets to scowl altogether. Tenderness shines through again.

“Okay,” Junhee says, half breathless. “Okay. But I want to help.”

“You should,” says Byeongkwan, smiling wider.

“Ah, but that’s not the point!” cries Donghun. “Byeongkwan! What gives you the right? It’s—this is all _my_ business anyway! Why is everyone so meddlesome suddenly?”

He wears a dismayed, wide-eyed, victimized expression. He kneads the pillow in his fists.

“I can handle it by myself!” he says. 

Junhee rounds on him.

“Absolutely not. No. _Absolutely_ not.”

Donghun looks at Junhee with hatred. He shows his teeth like a wild animal before remembering to curl the corner of his mouth and laugh at his own anger.

“How _dare_ you!”

Sehyoon shifts his weight warningly.

“I know,” he says to Donghun, his voice flat with attempted gentleness. “We know, he’s yours. That’s no excuse.”

They turn to him in surprise.

Donghun opens his mouth in indignation, but somehow the retort dies on his lips. He just huffs and wraps his arms around himself.

“If you want to be mad, be mad,” says Sehyoon. “But you’re not safe for him right now. You’ll both get hurt.”

“_Why would you say that?_” Donghun demands. “Don’t I have experience? _How_ am I not safe?”

“Shouldn’t you know better than any of us,” Sehyoon snaps—actually snaps, causing Byeongkwan and Junhee to thrill a little— “the damage such feelings can do, when you’re trying to work out something important?”

Donghun glares. Sehyoon glares right back. Byeongkwan and Junhee look wide-eyed at each other.

“If he fucks up,” Sehyoon says softly. “You’ll pat his head and say he did well. If he’s proud of himself, you’ll laugh at him. He’ll tear himself to pieces trying to please you. That’s not what he needs. Not now.”

Junhee waves his hands at Donghun and Sehyoon, as if to disturb the thickening air between them.

“Ah, no, we’re not saying—”

Sehyoon cuts him off.

“Jun-ah. I _am_ saying.”

“Oh, and Byeongkwan won’t make fun of him?” sneers Donghun. “What, Junhee won’t baby him? I’m supposed to just give him up to you idiots?”

“Well, we’ll give him back,” says Byeongkwan. He fails to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. 

“I’ll destroy you, dongsaeng,” says Donghun with such venom that even Byeongkwan has to dodge a wave of fear.

Sehyoon and Junhee cross their arms at Donghun. Donghun throws his hands up furiously.

“So I can’t play,” Donghun says in disbelief. “I can’t be involved with this at all. That’s what you’re telling me.”

“Hyung,” says Junhee. “Just let us spend some time with him first. Please. Then _of course_ we’ll involve you. We just want to avoid complications, okay?”

Donghun decks Junhee with Sehyoon’s pillow; Junhee yelps and falls back on the mattress, cackling.

“I’ll destroy _you! You_ are a complication! You are my _worst nightmare_! I _quit this group! I quit it for all time!” _

Byeongkwan makes the mistake of looking at Sehyoon, who is also fighting to keep a straight face. Their eyes meet and they double over in perfect synchronization. Byeongkwan clings to Sehyoon, weak with laughter, while Donghun runs out of pillows to throw.

“Ah, hyung, don’t quit,” says a groggy voice from the doorway.

Byeongkwan feels like he’s levitating. He forces himself to look at Yuchan, who leans half-asleep with all his weight on the doorknob, rubbing scrunched-up eyes. The power of pure chaos fills Byeongkwan’s body with dizzying force as he sees Donghun notice a stray flake of dried blood on Yuchan’s neck. 

Junhee shrinks into Sehyoon’s bed as if trying to let it swallow him.

Sehyoon is the only one of them who doesn’t miss a beat. He smiles earnestly at Yuchan and waves to invite him in. Yuchan drags his feet across the threshold and shuffles over to Sehyoon, who pulls him into a protective half-hug.

“How much of that did you hear?” asks Junhee, a tiny speck in the shadow of the lower bunk.

Yuchan’s eyes are too bleary to manage a wink, but he heroically tries.

“How much of what?”


	6. mean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuchan gives beating up Junhee a shot.

“Junhee-hyung.”

“Mm?” Junhee is sprawled on his back on the bottom bunk in a deep-necked t-shirt and gym shorts, phone lifted over his eyes. His face is bare and shiny, his hair piled on his temples. He has no sense of occasion, apparently.

“You nervous?” Byeongkwan asks, working his mascara brush back into its tube. 

Junhee grins as waves of light wash over his cheeks from his scrolling phone screen in the shadow of the bed. He places his tongue between his teeth.

“Are you kidding?”

“Text him to come in, then.”

“Ah…”

Junhee wriggles slightly more upright and squints over his thumbs, tapping something out. Byeongkwan hears Yuchan’s phone buzz through the wall.

Seconds later come the knuckles on the door of their bedroom.

“Enter!” Byeongkwan calls impressively. Junhee snorts.

Yuchan slips in, opening the door as little as he can, a determinedly bright expression on his face. Byeongkwan rubs his chin to stop himself from staring. _Again with the pretty shit_, he thinks, almost irritable. Yuchan’s hair is damp and swept uncharacteristically far off of his face, showing off the almost-accidentally-tidy arches of his eyebrows. He’s put on that filtery, barely-there airport makeup: ash-brown tightline, pink glow on the underside of his upper lip, color-corrected jaw. That blistering, uneasy feeling moves through Byeongkwan again—but this time it comes to the surface warm, admiring.

“Hi, guys,” says Yuchan with a sporting grin. He pushes the door firmly shut with his back. He’s wearing cutoff jeans and a snug black turtleneck Byeongkwan thinks is more likely Donghun’s. His jacket is hooked in his elbow for some reason, as if he’s been anywhere other than on the sofa playing Mario Kart with the hyungs this whole time. As if he grabbed it when he stood up to make the five-step trip across the living room.

“How is everyone?” he asks. “Good condition?” He’s asking Junhee in particular, like he always does.

Junhee’s sitting up completely now, rapt, eyes sparkling at Yuchan. He waves his hand, inviting Yuchan to join him on the bed. Yuchan flops down.

Byeongkwan perches next to them and Yuchan’s arm enfolds him immediately. It’s an uncomfortable position, but Byeongkwan appreciates the insight into Yuchan’s heart rate, tucked in against his ribcage, under the hot pressure of his touch. Yuchan’s pulse in his ear like a beetle’s wings beating, just a tiny rigid thrum.

“Good,” says Junhee. “Very good.” His eyes are wide and funny with that wry astonishment only he can show. 

Yuchan keeps smiling. He glances to Byeongkwan for reassurance, but almost as an afterthought, a courtesy—his eyes keep drifting back to Junhee. Junhee returns his gaze, open and indulgent. Byeongkwan can tell they want to play. He frees himself from Yuchan’s hug to better watch them. They brush against each other almost imperceptibly, like unfamiliar animals, sharp fascination glinting just beyond their mild expressions. Sensing each other. Their cheeks warm faintly with a mild embarrassment Byeongkwan can practically smell, the way you can smell the radiator switching on in winter.

Junhee laughs. His body language instinctively follows the shy turn of Yuchan’s head when he looks away.

“So,” he says.

“Hyung…” Yuchan sounds almost reproachful when he addresses Junhee. His smile is still bright, guardedly bright. 

Byeongkwan is close enough to see a shudder move through Junhee’s back. Junhee’s forehead fluoresces slightly with sweat. Byeongkwan reaches around Yuchan to seize Junhee by the elbow; Junhee squirms out of Byeongkwan’s grasp, mouth pressed tight. He catches Byeongkwan’s eye with a thrilled expression.

Byeongkwan feels Junhee sort of shimmering now, even more palpably than Yuchan, like the frantic movement of the edge of a mirage. His whole body is gathered up into a sensitive, hovering posture, apprehensive tenderness. Every cell of him seems aimed, magnetically, at Yuchan. Byeongkwan notes a swell of that particularly pleasant, useful jealousy—the kind that makes him feel powerful, aware of the currents of others’ attention passing smoothly over him.

He clears his throat. 

“We talked some about this yesterday,” he says, beginning a little louder than intended. He compensates by resting his ear on the bedframe. He looks coolly down his nose at the two of them. “We still feeling good?”

Junhee and Yuchan glance at each other again and nod.

“Yep,” says Junhee like he’s ordering dessert.

“Oh yeah,” says Yuchan. Junhee giggles and presses his hand. Yuchan looks down with a flutter of his eyelids.

“Love it,” says Byeongkwan. “I’ll lead, then, for now. But I’ll let you two have all the fun. Just do what I say, when I say, and we’ll enjoy ourselves.” He crawls his hand across the comforter to squeeze Junhee’s ankle, where he feels a tendon twitch.

“Oh, have we started already?” asks Yuchan brazenly. Junhee throws back his head and cackles. Byeongkwan rolls his eyes to the side, allowing himself an irked half-smile.

“Not yet,” he says. He paces his words with added drama for their benefit. “If you want to reason with me about details, now’s your chance.”

Junhee and Yuchan titter into each other’s shoulders. Their gleeful looks in Byeongkwan’s direction, mingled amusement and awe, let him know he’s laying it on just thick enough. Byeongkwan can feel the mattress beneath them conducting all their restless shifting weight, jumbling their rhythms together.

“I like the details,” says Junhee. He idly gnaws the frayed hem of his shirt. A bared crease of belly muscles. Yuchan pulls the fabric from between Junhee’s teeth with a soft shake of his head.

“Me too...” he mumbles.

“Yuchan.”

Yuchan quirks his chin when Byeongkwan says his name.

“You agree to be my instrument today?”

Yuchan nods _yes_ with mischief in his eyes. Byeongkwan likes the look of him—he’s desperate and scrappy, ready for games and reversals.

“Yeah, sure—so I just follow your instructions?”

“Well, that’s up to you—do you want to follow my instructions,” asks Byeongkwan, careful to raise a haughty eyebrow, “or my orders?”

Yuchan flashes his teeth.

“Instructions,” he retorts. Byeongkwan glares at Yuchan, but he’s pleased. It’s the right answer, for Yuchan, for now. They catch each other’s gaze.

Junhee’s eyes shift over their faces beatifically. He shakes his hair out of his eyes, already in the rumpled flush of fainthearted laughter. Byeongkwan thinks he looks as sweet and innocent as he does hungry. There’s something pure about the impassioned, meek sincerity with which Junhee so often wants what’s coming to him, no matter what it is.

And Byeongkwan wants to bring it. He knows Yuchan is there. He knows this is about giving Yuchan practice, vaguely—but this is also the interesting part, where Byeongkwan gets to learn what Yuchan can do for him.

Byeongkwan separates himself from the mattress and stands up. He puts his hand on Yuchan’s shoulder, parting him from Junhee. 

He wrestles Junhee teetering to his feet. He makes him stand against the bunk bed’s upright post and pins him there.

“Yuchan, honey,” Byeongkwan says, staring Junhee down. He addresses Yuchan so silkily he can hardly hear himself, but Yuchan still manages to growl at the endearment. “If you want to get ready, I put some things for you on the desk. Go ahead” —he grips Junhee by the chin and gives his head a shove— “we won’t look.”

Yuchan leaps upright. He takes a step toward the desk then looks over Byeongkwan’s shoulder at Junhee.

“Promise?”

“Promise,” says Junhee. Under Byeongkwan’s hands Junhee is slack, pliant as ever, but his voice when he speaks to Yuchan is steady and warm. Junhee’s knee rises carelessly into Byeongkwan’s thigh; Byeongkwan pushes it back.

He bends backward from Junhee, still fixing him with an imperious look, to reach a bundle of rope from its hook underneath the desk. His wrist brushes Yuchan’s shoulder and by touch alone he gets the strange, disembodied impression of Yuchan shuffling around with something. He hears clutter and an awed inhale, but he keeps his promise. He doesn’t turn. He uses a digging thumb to steer Junhee’s face away from Yuchan, too.

He distracts himself for a moment on the surface of Junhee’s skin. He surveys the feathery laugh lines, the blemishes and raised dry spots on his cheeks, the folds of frantic, fleeting smiles. That’s where the best pain in the world lives. Right on Junhee’s goddamn skin.

“You’ll hold still for me,” he says, close enough for his voice to ruffle Junhee’s hair. “Won’t you?” Junhee hums happily, a groaning laugh through his nose, dragging his shirt off over his head. Byeongkwan unloops the rope.

With Junhee standing against the bunk bed, Byeongkwan begins to wrap his body in broad, minimal ties—chest squeezed between bands of jute, a sturdy web locked over his shoulder blades, a suspending line wrapped around the upper bunk. With light knocks Byeongkwan can instruct Junhee’s limbs to fold obediently into weakened shapes, so he can bind the right calf to the right thigh; the right foot to the right buttock, the left wrist twisted to the middle of the spine. An extra loop in the mess of knots for Junhee to rest his free hand if he needs to. Byeongkwan makes sure to touch every muscle he ties. He makes sure the half suspension supports Junhee as if it were part of himself.

Junhee is quiet then, almost sleepy, distant and unseeing. He hangs there, propped on his left leg in sort of a backwards chicken fight position, his torso leaning forward at an angle to the floor. The flush in his cheeks has cooled a little, but the tousled beauty hasn’t.

“Hi,” says Byeongkwan under his breath once he is satisfied that every knot will hold. Junhee blinks awake and rests his forehead in Byeongkwan’s proffered palm. “How does that feel?”

“Hi,” says Junhee. Very, very soft. “Feels good.” Byeongkwan catches him trying to steal a glance at Yuchan, who has finally stopped rummaging around. It must be time. 

“You gonna be okay on one leg? Circulation good?”

“Yep,” says Junhee. His eyes crinkle. “Fussing doesn’t suit you.” He’s alert now, and breathless, like a properly snared wild thing. Byeongkwan steps back from his work. 

“Whoa,” says Yuchan behind him.

Byeongkwan wheels around.

“Whoa yourself,” he says. 

Yuchan has made good use of what Byeongkwan found for him. Byeongkwan wasn’t sure he would—it was only an idea—but _lord_, was it a good call. 

The white things.

Yuchan’s nose and eyes are clear under a sheer white blindfold, a gauzy band of floral lace so fine it disappears upon the skin like snow. Byeongkwan can see his eyelashes bend a little as they blink against the mesh. 

His lips are dewy with a powder-pale gloss, giving him a springlike, ghostly look. He’s swapped out his black stud earrings for ones that dangle and glitter; latched the plastic pearls around his neck like they belong there. He keeps his cutoff jeans and mismatched ankle socks, but he’s discarded Donghun’s turtleneck and stripped down to an undershirt, which is also—bless him—white. 

And lastly, the fantastic gloves. They reach up past his elbows until his biceps stop them in a scrunch. Cheap costume satin, ill-fitting at the fingers, but a bright, an utterly blank and beaming white. 

Byeongkwan has never had a bad idea in his life.

“Do you think I look good?” 

Yuchan keeps whirling back and forth, both drawn to his reflection in the makeup mirror and determined to tear himself away from it.

Byeongkwan beams.

“You look evil as shit,” he says. “You look like a…beautiful snow maiden demon.”

Yuchan tosses his head back in a loud clumsy laugh.

“Hyung-ah!” he cries, shaking his hair. “Maiden! Demon! What is that supposed to mean!” But he crosses his gloved hands daintily over his heart. His grin fades into something softer as he plays the satiny knuckles over his cheeks to feel how smooth they are.

“But I—they’re _white_,” he says, hesitant. His eyes skim Junhee. “They’ll be—“ 

“I found them for you, for this,” says Byeongkwan. “Ruin them.”

Yuchan glows. Byeongkwan can see his mind working to adapt this into some kind of game he can win. He’s going to make a mess.

With his free hand, Junhee grips the rope around his chest, touched.

“Ah—oh _wow_. You look so _pretty_.” 

He coos like a grandmother while Byeongkwan both laughs and glares. Yuchan runs a glove through his hair self-consciously, staring straight past Junhee. Junhee hangs his head but fails to tuck away his smile.

Yuchan doesn’t acknowledge Junhee except to move toward him with a regal interest.

“I brought you a present, Yuchan,” says Byeongkwan. He sways Junhee gently. That shuts Junhee up. Byeongkwan can feel the last traces of strength, of volition, sieve from Junhee’s limbs like sugar from a punctured bag. 

He grips the rope and leans Junhee’s blank, shivery body toward Yuchan on its tether.

Yuchan’s grin erupts again.

“Oh,” he says with exaggerated grace. “This little trinket? And what am I supposed to do with him?”

With his head still bowed toward the ground, Junhee gasp-giggles through his nose.

Byeongkwan narrows his eyes.

“He’s ornery,” he says. “I was hoping you could help me cut him down to size. With some bullying, he can be…”

He grabs Yuchan’s glove and guides his hand to rest on the rope. Yuchan looks up at him, not with awed or innocent eyes, but with keen, calculating ones. His mouth is in a tight twist, his chin drawn slightly down as if he can’t believe his luck. 

Byeongkwan lets go of the rope and backs away. He perches on the corner of the desk. If he were to extend his arm, Junhee, along with Yuchan standing over him, would be just past the graze of his fingertips. He feels, for the most fleeting moment, an uncomfortable sense of separation.

“…Very sweet. In fact—”

He gets control.

“—Why don’t you bite him and see?”

He laughs, but at Byeongkwan’s invitation, Yuchan’s head dips down to the exposed curve of Junhee’s upper arm. Junhee lets out a tense shriek before Yuchan’s lips even touch him, then blushes hotly, betrayed when no sensation comes. Yuchan gives a taunting growl, shaking his head a little like a shark charging through the water. He brushes Junhee lightly with his nose and bares his teeth without quite bringing them to Junhee’s skin. Junhee is helpless; he whines and yelps with every little movement Yuchan makes, until they can’t stop laughing at each other. Yuchan even pulls away to catch Junhee’s eye, as if they’re in on some joke together. Byeongkwan falls awkwardly between hilarity and irritation. Are these two just going to be stupid all night?

But then, just as Junhee relaxes, Yuchan takes his chance. He clamps Junhee’s shoulder muscle viciously between his teeth, holding Junhee’s unbound arm in his gloved hands. He sinks in. For a moment, Junhee is too shocked even to scream.

Byeongkwan bolts upright.

“Leave a mark,” he says. His throat is suddenly dry. “Don’t break his skin.”

Yuchan doesn’t let go, but Byeongkwan can tell from Junhee’s breath that he’s playing with pressure, digging in deeper, loosening his grasp in waves. Junhee finally lets out a kind of offended yowl. Yuchan’s fingers wind into Junhee’s hair before he releases him, straightens. 

The marks on Junhee’s shoulder are brutally indented, throbbing and white. Blood vessels pinprick under the skin, but nothing runs free. Junhee twitches between shouting laughs. His eyes water at the soreness. His free hand follows Yuchan’s retreat before he allows it to fall.

Byeongkwan laughs too.

“That’s—” Junhee gasps. He grins at Byeongkwan. “He’s really going to hurt me if you let him, huh?”

Yuchan’s opens his mouth but stops himself from speaking. He grips Junhee tightly and turns to Byeongkwan, eyes wide beneath their thin white haze of lace. Byeongkwan crosses his arms and drums his fingers on his bicep.

“He might whether I let him or not, don’t you think?” 

Yuchan looks back at Junhee with raised eyebrows and a tempting smirk.

Junhee makes a ragged sound. His hand trails hopelessly down Yuchan’s chest; his head sinks to the side as he resigns himself. Yuchan, too, with satiny knuckles, searches the exposed parallels of Junhee’s skin between the knots. He takes care to only half-touch him, to tickle him and make him itch, to find the spots that send fear glowing like a flare toward his spine.

“Try his shoulders,” Byeongkwan says. He shifts in his seat at the edge of the desk. He leans back on his wrist. His fingers find the hard squared edge and lock there, where no one else can see, for stability. “Try his back.”

Junhee gives a labored sigh while Yuchan prowls around him. Byeongkwan watches Yuchan’s face, noting the moment he finds the days-old welts and bruises in light leafy patterns over Junhee’s ribs. There is a palpable change, a quickening, when Yuchan sees the way Junhee is marked. His eyes trace the expert trails, using them to chart his own path. Yuchan must truly be gifted at pain; even his gaze, even through lace, seems to burn Junhee’s skin.

Yuchan moves in on Junhee from behind, half-wrapping him in one arm while outstretching the other toward Byeongkwan, indicating the tools on the desk. Byeongkwan follows Yuchan’s white-sheathed finger and picks out what he’s pointing to—the pinwheel, a spiny little instrument like a cowboy’s spur.

Byeongkwan hands it over. Yuchan flicks the rotating metal sunburst with his thumb, letting it whir menacingly by Junhee’s ear. Junhee runs his tongue over his teeth.

“Junhee-ya…” purrs Byeongkwan. “Look what it takes to make you behave. It’s too bad.”

Yuchan affects a chuckle. He’s good—he scrolls the little wheel lightly over the vertebrae in Junhee’s neck first, to watch Junhee curl like a frostbit leaf into the ropes that bind him. Then he covers Junhee’s gaping mouth with his gloved palm, offering him something to bite.

He pushes the prongs into the taut muscle yoking Junhee’s shoulder. Junhee’s face drives against Yuchan’s hand, and Yuchan’s eyes pinch in pain at the same time as Junhee’s; Junhee biting hard, Yuchan digging in harder. Byeongkwan holds his breath. In the gritted quietness, he hears a soft _pop_ as a metal pin pierces Junhee’s skin. 

Junhee releases all his breath at once. 

A dark droplet swells, heavy and opaque, out of the puncture; Yuchan wrenches his hand from Junhee’s teeth with a soft noise of complaint, saliva pooled on the palm of his glove. He grimaces and worms his sore, gnawed fingers into Junhee’s hair. He bends Junhee’s head forward. With a lighter, less destructive touch, he marches the wheel back up Junhee’s throat, tracking bright pinpricks of blood in a precise dotted line toward Junhee’s ear. Junhee whitens, moans. If Yuchan were to break the skin there—Byeongkwan can see the thought sift through Junhee’s mind. Once it frightens his body into total, soggy weakness, its work is done—it floats off somewhere, leaving only a trusting smile, a film of sweat. Yuchan lifts the wheel away.

Junhee struggles to make a small impressed sound. He sinks into his knee a little, only to stretch, to gather his focus. He laughs.

“You’re mean,” he says to Yuchan. “Meaner than this one.” He jiggles his head at Byeongkwan. “Really, you’re no joke. Who would have thought…”

“Don’t listen to him, Yuchan,” says Byeongkwan. “He says that to all the blood tops.”

Yuchan grins, but his eyes are narrowed. He cradles Junhee’s forehead in the crook of his elbow, feigning jealousy, as Byeongkwan continues.

“And how dare you,” says Byeongkwan to Junhee. “_I_ am the meanest. _Of all time. For-ev-er_.”

Yuchan can’t resist the bait.

“Oh?”

Yuchan grabs Junhee by the rope and Junhee gives his weight freely, with a loud, delighted laugh. Even Byeongkwan can’t help but duck his head in a grin. It’s so funny, it’s so good. Yuchan seems twice Junhee’s size. He’s so curious and new, but it doesn’t make him shy—it makes him wild.

“If you’re mean,” spits Byeongkwan at Yuchan. “Prove it.”

Yuchan wipes the meager amount of blood off Junhee with the wrist of his glove and looks. It won’t do—just a tiny red smear in the glossy costume cloth. He moves around in front of Junhee, showing him the spot with a stony expression. He pulls Junhee’s ear close to his mouth and lowers his voice to a whisper.

“This? This is all you have for me?” 

“No-o...” Junhee makes his voice singsong and coy.

Within seconds, Yuchan and Junhee are both fighting smiles again, but it doesn’t matter. Junhee is hanging on Yuchan, Yuchan hanging on Junhee, and Byeongkwan sees the charge between them that he wants to see. They’ve gone somewhere strange, an impossible place where all the love and care Junhee has given all these years fail to protect him in the end. Where Yuchan can bring the wrong version of himself out to play, so Junhee can enjoy the special pain of seeing that one face to face. So they can work together to spell it out across Junhee’s straining skin instead of looking at it directly. Yet amid all this, under the brutal, overeager gestures—the head rattled by the hair, the throat grasped, the body shadowed in the bigger body—Yuchan moves tenderly, with the dawning consciousness that this particular kind of meanness is a way to care for Junhee, too. Without taking his eyes from Junhee’s face, he throws his hand open again, palm up, toward Byeongkwan.

Byeongkwan unwraps the safety scalpel and gives it handle first to Yuchan.

Yuchan’s fingers curl around it. With his other hand he covers Junhee’s eyes. He makes Junhee brace against him with his unbound arm, ensuring he won’t sway.

“You’re gonna give me more, then,” says Yuchan, breathing into Junhee’s chin. He touches the flat side of the blade’s plastic casing to the thin skin over Junhee’s eyebrow. Their mouths are both slightly open; their tongues move just behind their teeth in unison and Byeongkwan has to rearrange his whole face.

Junhee has been a dancer for half his life. He actually _can_ hold a position without trembling, without that forehead crumpling, that mouth exploding in a smile or snarl. He can be quiet, impassive, breathing only through his nostrils until they glisten and run, but never twitching. In years of playing with Byeongkwan, stillness and silence have always been commands to cheerfully disobey, to warrant more discipline. Byeongkwan’s never seen him do it like this.

Eyes hidden in Yuchan’s hand, arm locked out on Yuchan’s shoulder, face tilted up to lift his temple to the scalpel, Junhee disappears. Only a grim mouth, a tangled body. 

So Yuchan can make Junhee be still. Or Junhee wants to let Yuchan play as recklessly as Byeongkwan can allow.

“You know you’re so handsome,” says Yuchan softly. “I could change that right now, couldn’t I?” 

He lifts his left hand from Junhee’s eyes, but Junhee keeps them shut. Junhee keeps breathing through his nose, hums, twists his mouth to suppress a hysterical laugh. Byeongkwan wants to catch Yuchan’s eye with a look of approval, but Yuchan is absorbed in Junhee’s face. 

He forces open Junhee’s mouth with a gloved thumb, hooks two fingers to expose the wet red inside of his lower lip. Byeongkwan sees Junhee’s chest inflate between its bonds. From his seat on the desk he lowers his foot to the floor, just in case—but waits a moment longer.

Yuchan squeezes Junhee’s lip tightly between his fingers. Delicately, precisely, with only the tip of the blade, he pricks the vulnerable inner lining of the skin.

Byeongkwan feels a sick jolt move white-hot, like sympathetic pain, from the root of his stomach to the muscles of his jaw. He grips the desktop so fiercely he lifts himself off it. Yuchan bolts a little, too, pulling the scalpel away from Junhee’s face as if burned. It clatters to the floor. 

When Byeongkwan darts down to stash the scalpel somewhere safe, it doesn’t occur to him to get back up. He sits there on the floor, elbow resting heavy on the chair, fist balled on his knee. 

His heart is racing. He doesn’t know where to look. There’s no part of either of them he can focus on without a rushing in his ears. Was he supposed to say or do something around now? He can’t remember. Are either of them all right?

Junhee wrenches his eyes open with a shudder. Yuchan seizes Junhee by the jaw to examine his face.

“That hurt?” His voice is gruff.

“No.” Junhee smiles and then the blood comes quickly. All the teeth in that mouth film over red. 

Yuchan looks twitchy and white. The muscles in his neck stretch as he ducks closer to Junhee’s face.

“Too bad.”

Junhee rocks a little as a pleasant shiver moves over him. 

“Why don’t you make it?” says Junhee, feigning shyness.

Yuchan’s throat makes a low hiccuping sound. He lowers his eyes disdainfully.

“Adj—Will you adjust him,” he asks Byeongkwan. “Will you make him bow.” Yuchan changes rapidly to a more respectful form, but Byeongkwan feels a sort of pride to hear his own imperious tone mimicked so well in Yuchan’s voice, even for a moment.

Byeongkwan rises to his feet, throwing an aloof, contemptuous look at Yuchan to let him know this is purely voluntary.

Junhee flashes a grin.

Byeongkwan shoves himself in front of Yuchan and pulls Junhee close for a moment, loosening the knots that fold his leg against his back. Junhee lowers his tender right foot to the floor with a soft groan and bends his knees a little, stretching, feet flat on the floor, toes white-knuckled. Byeongkwan adjusts the partial suspension, too. Careful not to touch the welling blood on Junhee’s lips, he shoves Junhee’s head down to bend his spine. Another grunt from Junhee’s belly. He readjusts the rope so Junhee’s body hangs there in a partial bow, his face toward the floor. Byeongkwan moves his hands over Junhee’s shoulder blades before he steps away, showing Yuchan where the best cries come from. Under his palms, he can feel Junhee breathing weakly. Junhee’s skin feels like water, thin and permeable. Every slight disturbance ripples him. Suppressed, fearful giggles flutter the length of his ribcage. The palm of his bound arm faces upward; its fingers twitch as if in sleep. Byeongkwan wants to stay close, close to Junhee’s frantic, vibrating little body, right there in the space where it anticipates the pain—but he steps away.

Yuchan picks out a short, flexible cane from the collection on the desk.

“Close your mouth,” he barks over Junhee’s whimper. “And don’t swallow, got it? You save that blood for me.”

Junhee struggles to force shut a mouth that only wants to wince and laugh. Blood immediately beads in the corners of his lips. His nostrils flare. A dark, heavy droplet breaks free and bursts on the linoleum. He twists his neck to raise his face, to show unconvincingly pitiful eyes to Yuchan, who gnaws his mouth and laughs loudly.

“What did I just say!”

He brings the cane whistling down on the exposed side of Junhee’s upper back. Junhee’s head drops forward; a breath sends blood up his nose; he wheezes and lets more blood spatter free at Yuchan’s feet. Yuchan lurches back and strikes again. Junhee’s eyes clamp shut, his brow knotted upward. He can’t keep his mouth from opening now. Yuchan flicks the cane over the backs of Junhee’s thighs. He trails the tip over Junhee’s kidneys and his whole body flexes at the abject moan it gets him, Junhee’s helpless, hilarious terror. He lands a nasty slap on the upturned palm of Junhee’s retrained hand and involuntary tears begin to stream. Junhee grins with his tongue out and expertly maintains his balance.

Byeongkwan returns to the floor, to his sheltered spot in their shade, and grows lightheaded watching them. He can feel his dick begin to push against his thigh under his jeans. The sounds Junhee is making, gasps giving way to tiny cries giving way to full-throated shouts. The tear tracks in the blood on his mouth. The handsome, mean-spirited smile on Yuchan’s face.

Yuchan’s glove moves down the newest numb red welt on Junhee’s shoulder. His fingers pinch and twist the raw groove of skin, driving fresh pain down the roads already laid. Junhee leans on the rope and shouts, almost unable to laugh. Tears and spit dilute what blood he can’t keep in his mouth. Byeongkwan catches Junhee’s eye, ready to give the word when he’s had enough—but Junhee shakes his head. That far-away, ecstatic look is forming on his face. That look alone makes Byeongkwan hard, makes his limbs feel heavy, his toes dig into the floor. The good pain in Junhee’s body radiates across the room.

Yuchan is changing, his posture loosening. His shoulders slouch crookedly and he shifts his weight to one hip, as if drunk. He throws the cane aside and lifts Junhee to standing with a hand on his face. Junhee straightens with difficulty, unsteady and awkward in his bonds. His pupils are blown out, lost in the watering black of his eyes. His forehead is unknotted, his body calm and pliant.

The blood that seeps onto the palm of Yuchan’s glove is fresh and bright. He pinches Junhee’s mouth. He forces blood to swell in fat drops and shatter in the satiny fabric. Junhee’s harsh, happy breathing sends red flecks flying onto the white lace over Yuchan’s eyes. Yuchan’s hand slides from Junhee’s face onto his throat, trailing and smearing blood across Junhee’s chin. 

Byeongkwan surreptitiously rubs his palm over his heart. They both look incredible, locked together and bloodied, a cat and a caught bird. Junhee small and tethered, panting now but limp; Yuchan huge and athletic, pinning Junhee like he weighs nothing. Byeongkwan feels a faint jealousy of how much bigger Yuchan is than Junhee, that Junhee can visibly shrink in his shadow.

Junhee’s eyes are shining. With his tongue, he prods the shallow cut in his lip, purposely pushing out still more blood. His unbound arm shakes badly, but he reaches up to pull the sheer blindfold from Yuchan’s eyes. Yuchan doesn’t stop him. The fabric falls away.

Bare now, Yuchan’s eyelids seem impossibly heavy. He looks only at Junhee’s gory face, his own lips parted, spit shining at their corners.

“I want _that_,” he mumbles.

“It’s yours,” says Junhee. He sounds teasing, sweet, pleasantly ragged. He tilts his head back. Byeongkwan’s fingernails dig into his palms.

Yuchan’s breath is deafening and wild. Soiled glove still on Junhee’s throat, he lowers his open mouth to Junhee’s open mouth. He licks blood from Junhee’s chin. His tongue finds its way inside Junhee’s lower lip, where the tiny wound is; Junhee grimaces but meets Yuchan’s mouth softly, patiently. He supports himself with his free arm on Yuchan’s shoulder again. Their upper lips nudge together. Byeongkwan sees a flash of Junhee’s sharp canine tooth. A drop of Junhee’s blood rolls down Yuchan’s jaw.

They do all this together lightly, somehow not quite kissing—it’s a different kind of loving transference, like nourishment. Byeongkwan feels more warmth in the pit of his stomach. Whether they’re kissing or not, his dick can’t tell the difference.

This time, Yuchan moans first. He wipes blood down the arms of his gloves. His voice catches, as if he’s going to cry.

“You _love_ this,” he says to Junhee. The words are meant to be degrading, but Yuchan’s voice betrays faint wonder. Byeongkwan knows the feeling. Awe at how Junhee gives it up so well, makes himself so small and malleable. Byeongkwan lets the warm wave travel up his body. He holds his breath.

Junhee rolls his head back on his shoulders with a lazy smile. He just hums.

This time, Yuchan tries to speak nastily. He sticks out his chin and lets his eyelids sag. 

“You’re a slut for it, for real.” 

“M-hmm.” Junhee closes his eyes, nodding in blissful assent.

“All you want,” Yuchan continues. “Is to give it all to me. Your body. Your pain. Your blood.”

With the transparent red smears marring his whole face, Yuchan looks truly frightening. Byeongkwan allows himself a shiver.

Junhee’s eyelashes flutter wildly as he listens to Yuchan. His mouth is clamped shut, but the roots of his teeth emerge one by one. Byeongkwan realizes he’s fighting to keep a straight face.

“Mmmm-_hmmm_…” 

Junhee bobs his head and begins to laugh, apparently at Yuchan—but his voice suddenly fails, swallowed in a sharp intake. A shudder moves from the muscles of his jaw down the bared line of his throat. He clutches at Yuchan’s chest and pulls him close. Sealing the space between them with a single, dreamlike step, Yuchan gathers Junhee in his arms until their hips knock together. His fingers dig into the back of Junhee’s neck. He grunts quietly when he feels Junhee against him. 

Byeongkwan leans back on his shoulders and presses his hand into the front of his jeans. He recognizes the endorphin overload in both their bodies. It can come on quickly. He knows Junhee is blank and empty now in Yuchan's arms. He doesn't know where Yuchan is, but sees his shoulders rising, his balance flagging. Byeongkwan's seen that before, too.  
  
Their breath rushes in his ears as he hears them fall apart together. Junhee goes so still, hidden in Yuchan’s shoulder—and then gives out a surging sigh, releases his head to get air, red-faced and dizzy. He holds himself up with his free hand whitened on his knee. Yuchan staggers back, winded too. He clings to the frame of the bunk bed, but the slick of blood and faux satin send him sliding to his heels. He crawls close to Junhee’s folded body.

Junhee opens his eyes one at a time, inspecting Yuchan with mild shock. Yuchan looks at him and breaks into a mortally embarrassed smile.

The two of them burst out laughing.

Junhee’s laugh is loud and deep now—not the breathless panic-giggling of being tormented, but his wide-awake, everyday laugh. His smile is so full Byeongkwan can see the blood collected in his gums.

“Who is this kid?” he says to Byeongkwan. “Seriously—” He turns to Yuchan, eyes bulging humorously. “Who are you?”

Byeongkwan straightens and sits on his hands. He smirks in self-defense.

“Jun-ah. Be nice.”

Yuchan’s grin is enormous too, but his cheeks are hot, his eyes distant and wary. Junhee sees—he’s quick to see. He rests his free hand under Yuchan’s chin.

“You’re good at it,” he says. “You’re a natural. Don’t worry a bit.”

Yuchan’s ears are still furiously red. The blood is drying on their faces.

“But you want to stop,” he says entreatingly. He knows it’s over too.

“Only b—” Junhee catches his breath to swallow blood and spit. “Only because I’m tired.”

Byeongkwan suddenly feels Junhee’s fatigue wash over him. It brings guilt with it, the unpleasant kind. Byeongkwan was enjoying himself too much to pay attention. He even forgot to lead, though he said he would, once Yuchan found his stride. He was swept away in the thrill of exposing Junhee to the danger of someone inexperienced and new. Now, he feels the nagging worry that he did too little. The protectiveness comes back fiercely. He’s on his feet before he knows it.

“Move over,” he mutters to Yuchan, somewhat ungracefully. He pulls Junhee’s hand away from where it grasps Yuchan’s undershirt. Junhee raises his arm, and Yuchan slips under it, supporting him as Byeongkwan begins loosening the knots. He pulls lengths of rope free so quickly that they scrape Junhee’s skin; Junhee gasps and buries a grin in Byeongkwan’s shoulder.

“Ah—” says Byeongkwan warningly. “Getting blood on my shirt.”

“Oh, no,” teases Junhee.

Yuchan smacks Junhee’s ass. Junhee gives a gleeful shriek and curls his face deeper into Byeongkwan’s chest, smudging him even more.

“Bitch,” says Byeongkwan.

“How mean,” Junhee whines. “It’s killing me. Go easy.” Byeongkwan blushes.

“Never,” he says. “You hear me? Never.”

He tears the last of the rope away. Junhee doesn’t seem to want to stand on his own, or maybe he can’t—he doesn’t take his weight from Yuchan’s shoulder. He stretches his newly-unbound arm, admiring the patterned indents, the raw trails where the rope has rubbed him. Yuchan is looking, too. He idly tongues blood in the corner of his mouth while he watches Junhee finger fresh welts that will turn to bruises.

With a long sigh, Junhee slides off Yuchan’s shoulder and unfurls his body on the bottom bunk. Byeongkwan’s hand darts after him, as if to catch him, before he lowers it self-consciously. Junhee extends his torso, arms under his head, showing off the impressions on his stomach. Outside their room, the night has long since fallen—but Junhee luxuriates like a pet in a patch of sun.

Yuchan flops down next to him. His landing almost bounces Junhee off the mattress with a shout of laughter. Byeongkwan perches cautiously at the foot of the bed.

Yuchan rests his face in his hand, but pulls it away with a start.

“Oh—these—” He peels off the bloodstained white gloves, laughing sheepishly, and drops them to the floor. He resumes looking at Junhee, head propped on his palm. Junhee keeps lying flat on his back and taking slow, controlled breaths. He glances sidelong at Yuchan, then down his stomach at Byeongkwan.

“You got quiet,” he says.

Byeongkwan’s flush has barely had time to fade. Now it comes flooding back. Is he imagining reproach in Junhee’s voice?

“I meant to,” he retorts. He did not. “I wanted to see how Killer here could handle you.” 

He slaps Yuchan’s thigh with a smirk. Yuchan reaches down to grab his hand warningly, but Byeongkwan fixes him with a haughty stare until he releases it.

Junhee hums softly to himself.

“I’m impressed. Really.” He rolls his head over to face Yuchan again. “I’ll admit you’re scary. And you can—that pain was serious. You have a wild streak, don’t you? But we knew that.”

Yuchan shakes out his hair and cackles, swatting away Junhee’s hand as it tries to pinch his cheek.

“Still, we have to train you up before you can handle me,” says Junhee in the almost-aegyo he reserves for Yuchan. “No?”

Byeongkwan can’t control the rush of vindication. Meanwhile, Yuchan’s smile evaporates. He sets his jaw defiantly.

“Oh?” His voice pitches upward, threatening to break. “Hyung, what are you saying? What do I have to do?”

Junhee chuckles and heaves himself onto his elbows. He fidgets with the back of Yuchan’s hand. Yuchan twitches but doesn’t pull away.

“With practice,” says Junhee sweetly. “That’s all I meant. I’ll show you how to really be mean to me.” 

Yuchan turns pink and looks to Byeongkwan, at a loss. Byeongkwan shakes his head, hoping his own steady blush is enough to tell Yuchan_ I don’t know why he’s like this, sorry_. Yuchan rolls his eyes, groans, and drops his head to rest on Junhee’s thigh. Junhee traces a finger over Yuchan’s forehead happily.

“I _know_ how to be mean to you,” huffs Yuchan.

“I believe you,” says Junhee. “I know.”

Junhee toys with the sparkly earring still dangling from Yuchan’s ear. The other one has gotten lost somewhere. Junhee gives Byeongkwan a significant glance.

“These things are pretty,” he says. “The earrings, gloves. You looked…”

Blotted blood dries orange down the front of Yuchan’s shirt. Yuchan’s mouth, too, is smudged in a faint shimmer of lip gloss and a dull plaque of Junhee’s blood. His faded, once-red hair has stuck to his temples.

“Hyung, forget it.”

Yuchan’s tone is less like resentment than forgiveness.

“You both look like nightmares,” says Byeongkwan, reaching some wet wipes down from the desk. 

Junhee grins. Byeongkwan can see that his lower lip has begun to swell.

Yuchan sits up and gently begins to clean the blood away from Junhee’s mouth. He supports Junhee’s head in a way that makes him go distant and still, a funny expression on his face. When Yuchan traces the stray trails, plastered like drips of dark red wax to Junhee’s neck, Junhee squirms. Yuchan isn’t quite done enjoying him. 

Junhee gingerly squishes at his lip with his ring finger and pouts.

“Hmph. Is that puffy?”

“No,” says Byeongkwan.

“Yes,” says Yuchan over him.

Junhee whines in comical despair, covering his face with his hands.

“Ahhh, it’s going to be swollen and ugly tomorrow, seriously…”

He looks up, flushed and happy, to see Yuchan and Byeongkwan laughing at him.

“Sorry,” says Yuchan. “But you look a little tough, you know? Even more handsome. Like a fighter.”

Junhee falls back petulantly, still whining, into Byeongkwan’s lap. Byeongkwan wraps his arms around Junhee’s chest and doesn’t let go.

“Quiet,” he mumbles to the top of Junhee’s head, but he doesn’t mean it. He can feel Junhee’s bratty noises rumbling through his back.

Yuchan shifts around to the edge of the bed, feet resting on the floor so he can put his elbows on his knees. He wipes his own face clean with both hands, like a sports player mopping up sweat. He examines the muddled blood and makeup stains and folds the towelette brusquely, chewing his lips. His calf makes a restless jangling movement, up and down until the bed softly creaks. Byeongkwan can’t quite tell if he’s uncomfortable or trying to look cool.

“You know, it’s funny—” Yuchan blurts out. “When Donghun—”

Byeongkwan and Junhee sit up together with a jolt, eyebrows raised.

“Forget it,” repeats Yuchan.

“No,” says Junhee. “No, no, what were you going to say?”

“Something else,” says Yuchan. He looks over his shoulder at Junhee. “You’re really good at this. At, um. Subbing, bottoming, whatever, you know. It’s like…you make it feel so simple…like taking you over completely is the only thing to do.”

“Stop, I’m shy,” says Junhee with a chuckle, while Byeongkwan yanks his ear. “_Ouch!_ But I’ve had a lot of practice.Too much practice. Yeah—almost too much practice—”

“What about Donghun?” interrupts Byeongkwan. Junhee elbows him.

“He doesn’t want to be controlled or taken over,” Yuchan says plainly. “He wants to be fought.”

Junhee gives a small laugh that fades fast. His eyes move over Yuchan’s face; he reaches around Byeongkwan’s arm to tug the hem of Yuchan’s bloodied shirt.

“Maybe…” he says. “Maybe you’d be surprised.”

Yuchan dismisses him with a shrug.

“Yuchan.”

“Hm.”

Junhee extends his arms. Yuchan pulls his knees back up onto the bed. He shuffles around until he finds a way to lean into Junhee. Byeongkwan helps him join their heap, wrapping his arms around Junhee’s arms wrapped around Yuchan. He leans back, pulling the two of them down with him. How did_ he_ get sore in all of this? His ribs ache where they didn’t before. Junhee turns his cheek to smush it sweetly against Byeongkwan’s collarbone. Byeongkwan takes longer breaths to slow his heart. Yuchan shifts his weight a little so as not to crush them, instead hooking Junhee’s belly in his elbow, head on Byeongkwan’s shoulder.

Yuchan and Junhee go quiet, nestled in together. Byeongkwan just looks at the slats beneath the top bunk and absorbs their awkward warmth. He thinks about it. Scary little Yuchan, putting on height and weird blossoms in bursts, like a houseplant with the wrong amount of light.

“Yuchan,” he says after a minute. “You’re hot.”

Yuchan lifts his head up and swats tousled hair out of already-sleepy eyes.

“What?”

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes. What?”

Byeongkwan jiggles his knee under Junhee’s waist, trying to prod him for support. Junhee flinches as Byeongkwan’s thigh rubs the bitter welts on his back. Then he laughs.

“Yuchan,” says Junhee.

“_What?_”

“Listen, he’s right,” he says. He tucks his tongue into the side of his mouth. “You are.”


	7. pretty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donghun feels left out of Yuchan’s training. Sehyoon fills the space.

“This isn’t fun,” says Sehyoon. “You’re not even playing.”

Donghun turns his head back to the screen. Sure enough, his Princess Daisy laments with her face in her hand, kart wedged at the entrance of a tunnel, while Sehyoon’s Baby Luigi exults at the finish line. Sehyoon feels distinct annoyance as Donghun immediately resumes craning his neck toward the closed door, not bothering to conceal his eavesdropping efforts. With no reserve patience to search for the remote control, Sehyoon rises to his feet to turn the volume up on the TV. For the third time.

“Isn’t that too loud?” whines Donghun. “You’re blocking the screen now! I thought you were the one who wanted to play.”

What Sehyoon _wants_ is to pick Donghun up and shake him. He attempts to communicate this with the way his thumb digs into the power button.

“Fine!” says Donghun as the screen blinks out. He tosses his controller down and scowls. “Then I’m going to bed.”

“You are not,” says Sehyoon. “We’re going to the river. We’ll get some skewers on the way or something. We shouldn’t be here at all.”

Donghun’s mouth falls open furiously. With the TV off, the low frequencies of a conversation can be heard. Yuchan’s voice occasionally forgets to whisper and blares out above the others. 

Sehyoon desperately doesn’t want to hear. He moves to the door and smushes his feet into his sneakers, heels folding down the backs the way Donghun does it. He senses Donghun approaching helplessly behind him. When Sehyoon looks up, Donghun has crammed on a baseball cap and fixed his expression from one of pure abjection to deeply reluctant compliance. Sehyoon laughs at him.

“I’ll buy you beer and chicken at the waterfront,” he says. Being the designated babysitter for this whole plot is costing him so much money.

  
Sehyoon drags a heavily-sighing Donghun down into the street. It’s a muggy late summer evening, and the light is warm and long. The windows of the buildings shine hot and opaque like yellow pearls. 

“Ah, the sun is so good,” says Sehyoon. He pulls out his phone without turning it on and flashes a peace sign to his reflection in the dark screen. “Wouldn’t it be right to do a live? Or a vlog? I bet we look handsome.”

“Absolutely no chance,” says Donghun, but the thought brings out an instinctive viewer-friendly smile before he frowns and kicks a crushed tea can out of the gutter.

After walking for a few minutes in silence, Donghun turns to Sehyoon again.

“So what was with you being such a dick about this thing the other night?”

Sehyoon, not at all surprised by the antagonism, cuffs the back of Donghun’s head without hesitation. Donghun staggers a step forward and springs back up, fists raised, looking delighted at an invitation to fight—but then he drops his hands with a pained, grudging smile. Sehyoon nods. _That’s right._

“I don’t think I was out of line,” Sehyoon says with a shrug. “Yuchan…we call him yours, your dongsaeng, your…whatever, but...Hang on, are you actually dating? Or is this just some more bullshit?”

Donghun throws Sehyoon a nasty look.

“I don’t have to answer that,” he says. “…But it’s not bullshit.”

Sehyoon sighs. He squints at the sky as it condenses, slowly, all its light into a hazy orange band with the sun hanging from its center like a drop of red water.

“He’s our kid. He’s a shared responsibility.”

“If he’s a shared responsibility,” snaps Donghun, “why am I out here in the street with you?”

A streetlight hums on just as they pass under it. Sehyoon hums with it. He doesn’t really want to yell at Donghun more than he already has, but that muffled, annoyed feeling presses behind his eyes again.

“Do you know anything about BDSM? In general? Seriously, say like…three things you know about it right now. Don’t think, go!”

“Dom, sub, switch,” says Donghun instantly, counting down on his fingers. “Too easy. You thought I would live with Park Junhee and not know three things?”

“Okay, whatever,” says Sehyoon. He stretches his shoulders and cranes his neck to scout a food truck that might offer the promised skewers. He sees some closer to the park and adjusts their course in that direction. “But have you ever been in a relationship like that?”

“Not officially,” says Donghun. “But like…I’m old. I’ve been doing gay shit for a long time. I’ve tried things, you know?”

“I don’t think you have,” says Sehyoon, doing his best to keep his laugh good-natured. “I think you’re twenty-six and you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Donghun rounds on him.

“You, then,” he demands. “You’re an expert? You’re not telling me Byeongkwan is your—whatever—too?”

Sehyoon’s still annoyed, but he can’t help smiling at Donghun. He shakes his head vaguely, not a _yes_ or a _no_ but a _you don’t get to ask me about that._

“Byeongkwan is my boyfriend.”

Donghun chuckles and waves his hands as if to say _forget it._ The clean curves of concrete and glittering water come into view ahead of them.

“So for one thing,” Sehyoon continues, “it’s just a matter of experience, right? Byeongkwan, Junhee…they’ve been doing their thing for years now, and both of them have experience even from before. They’re better teachers for Yuchan than you or me.”

“Yeah, but I…” Donghun stops himself as Sehyoon leads him over a strip of dewy grass toward a truck with a large poster boasting chicken and soju.

Sehyoon leaves Donghun behind on the lawn while he pointedly chats in loud tones with the vendor. He buys four skewers and a bottle to share. When he returns, Donghun is sitting shamelessly like a small child on a park bench, arms stretched down between his legs toward the ground, tearing up grass and sprinkling it on the pavement.

“You said beer,” he grumbles.

“Stop it,” says Sehyoon. “Let’s go.”

Donghun frowns but rises. His face lightens as Sehyoon offers him a small bouquet of chicken pieces.

It’s getting dim by the time they find a spot on the water. The sky grows purple and thick with evening weather, the warmth fading from the air like the impression of a curled cat from a couch cushion. Sehyoon lets Donghun eat in silence beside him. He wants a moment of quiet anyway, to think about Yuchan without Donghun jealously whining his name.

He remembers the first time he saw Yuchan, in a grainy cell phone photograph in Byeongkwan’s hand. Tiny, flop-haired puppy with an underbite. He remembers saying, “Him?”

Byeongkwan had been talking about this impressive JYP dongsaeng for weeks. He referred to him casually as “the other gay kid,” and described him in half-awed, half-grudging tones that made Sehyoon suspect the two of them had enjoyed a healthy stint as rivals before finally making friends. When Byeongkwan said he was going to invite Yuchan to audition, Sehyoon replied that he was looking forward to meeting this “other gay kid.” Byeongkwan’s eyes darkened.

“He doesn’t, um, know,” Byeongkwan said, “actually.”

“Oh,” said Junhee, looking up from his yogurt. “That’s pretty serious.”

But Yuchan then was like the sun today—so good. That toothy mouth would split into the brightest smile. They all watched him carefully for signs of discomfort—none came. Homesickness, sometimes, or discouragement—but he didn’t pick fights, he never whined. He did everything with them, adopted them and loved them easily. He never wriggled out of hugs, never lightened his touch when thumping them on the back after practice the way other boys did, as if for fear of catching something. When Junhee ran out of _let’s go through it again_s, Yuchan had found some. _Once more, hyung_. Casually but sweetly. _This time._ And even Donghun on a bitchy day would smile without a grudge, raise his arms, extend his weight along his spine—go through it again. 

They did test him a little. They were all guilty of it. They’d talk energetically about boys until their cheeks flushed, hanging over the sides of their bunks at two in the morning like at summer camp, with only-thinly-concealed glances in Yuchan’s direction. That’s where they ran into trouble. Byeongkwan would be lying on his side with Sehyoon’s arm wrapped around him, head on his wrist, chatting about something as benign as schedules to Yuchan, whose bare ankle would be resting lightly over Sehyoon’s—and then, out of nowhere, Yuchan would crack a joke that made Donghun turn green on the other side of the room. Byeongkwan isn’t the type to lose his temper—he likes to trade blows slowly, painfully, until he wins by sheer force of will—but he was always ready to fight Yuchan in moments like these. _How can you say you love us—how can you even work with us when you say shit like that, you punk?_ And then the emotional chaos of the next several days as Yuchan withdrew, Byeongkwan tormented him, Donghun moped, Junhee cajoled, until finally things resolved, either in tearful apologies or remorseful silence.

Yeah, they watched him carefully. They tried to protect him—sometimes to instill a sense of confidence in him, to defend him from ridicule, like with the shorts—sometimes to guard him against the nagging masculinity of other boys his age, just to keep him from internalizing the nastier shit until…until he was ready. And it was going okay. Not great, but steady. Or not steady, but sometimes they saw progress.

But then Yuchan placed in The Unit. Just barely.

Junhee didn’t cry bitterly or enviously. He was too used to it—by then it didn’t take him much time to dust himself off and keep going. He supported Yuchan with all the dignity and unconditional pride of a loving parent. When Junhee cried was when it dawned on him that Yuchan had to spend those months not with them, but with eight whole straight boys. Even if they were good kids, how would they know? Wouldn’t all that effort and guidance be undone? And then the bad times came. 

Sehyoon wonders how he acted then. It feels like a long time ago, though it wasn’t at all. He thinks he probably acted the way he always does—by staying out of it. But still, his heart ached for Yuchan, in its sort of distant way. He recognized the confusion, the conflict, the self-betrayal. They were all waiting for him. They felt helpless, especially then. He would have to come around on his own.

And then…fuck. There was that one night, sometime in the fall or winter, when they were starting to say the UNB contract wouldn’t be extended after all. It was so late; the others were asleep and Sehyoon was eating in secret, seated on the icy kitchen floor. Yuchan came out to eat in secret, too, or at least that’s what he said when Sehyoon looked up at him with sheepish surprise. Yuchan grabbed a soggy takeout container from the refrigerator and, without opening it, laid down on his stomach at Sehyoon’s feet.

_I’m ugly,_ he said. _I’m only ever “cute,” and even then, it’s in an ugly way, like a kid or some guy. Never pretty. Never sexy. That’s why a boy would never like me. _

For all the light-headed, floaty, numbing hunger that had gnawed at his insides that whole day, Sehyoon suddenly couldn’t eat.

_Huh,_ he remembers saying. _Not pretty? Not sexy? That’s too bad. If you weren’t pretty, a boy would have to like something else about you then, right? Like your dancing, or your beautiful singing voice? Your laugh? Or the way it’s impossible to look at you and still feel sad—wouldn’t a boy like someone like that?_

But Sehyoon was looking at Yuchan and feeling so sad—a sadness as deep in his gut as grief—he thought he might be sick.

_The funny thing, though, is that you are pretty. More every day. Everyone thinks so. Don’t your UNB hyungs call you pretty?_

Wordlessly, miserably, crushing the oil-softened paper box of fried udon in his hands, Yuchan put his head on Sehyoon’s knee.

  
Sehyoon thinks about Yuchan and takes a slug from the bottle. He loves that boy. Not like Donghun does, and not like he loves Byeongkwan, but not like he loves anybody else, either. Like another kid sister, maybe. But loving Yuchan isn’t about family or friendship, it’s about—ah— 

The point is, they need to get this right. 

“I know why I’m not allowed,” says Donghun glumly. His words are still thick with chewing. The light has faded far enough now that everything is blue—including Donghun perched on the wall overlooking the river, one fist stuffed into his pocket, the other holding a dirty skewer. “I’m not sensitive.”

“None of us are,” says Sehyoon. He holds out the bottle on the end of his arm; Donghun takes it. “Not enough for this. So it comes down to experience. Experience and not being…what’s that phrase…blinded by love.”

“Accusatory,” says Donghun, licking his finger dismissively. Sehyoon imagines rolling his eyes.

“I want to tell you something,” Sehyoon says. “When I first met Byeongkwan, did you know it was because he had tracked me down? He’d gotten my number from my sister? She thought he was crazy.”

Donghun laughs.

“I heard about that.”

“But anyway, it was—I saw him, I greeted him, and he was—I’d never met anyone so intense. My mind, I think my mind went faster than it ever had, because everything around me felt so slow.”

Sehyoon can hear himself speaking slowly, too. It’s hard to describe things from memory. When he has to search for words, his nose itches.

“We were outside, on the street corner. One of those very exposed, um…very temporary moments—night was falling, it was beginning to rain, his feet were pointed down one street and mine were pointed down a different one—so it would have been possible, if we had nothing to say after greeting each other, for us to just keep walking and not meet again. But I thought—I have to keep him close to me. I have to make sure he comes down the same street with me. So I asked him—”

“Not whether he wanted to eat with you,” Donghun offers, “but where. I remember.”

Sehyoon grins, a little embarrassed. It doesn’t matter how many times he tells this story, he always forgets he’s told it before.

“But I’m not talking about when we met,” he says. “I’m talking about love.”

“Mm.”

“Did you know it was almost a year after that before I realized something?”

“What was it?”

“My sister was right,” Sehyoon laughs. “Byeongkwan is crazy.”

Donghun cackles and claps his hands.

“Ah, no,” says Sehyoon, still smiling. “He’s amazing. But what I realized is he—needs a firmer touch sometimes. Guidance from older friends. When we were getting to know each other, I was, you know—blinded by love. I let him have his way too much. Things got out of shape.”

“So you’re saying I need to be sterner with Yuchan.”

“No, no,” says Sehyoon. “Yuchan and Byeongkwan aren’t the same.”

“You don’t need to tell me.”

“It’s just…when…when you…are…in love with…someone younger. You can forget to do your duty…as an older friend. You can forget what they need.”

“Oh…sure. Well, whatever.” Donghun clears his throat after a deep and bitter swig. “Stop being so mean with it, though,” he says, waggling the skewer in his hand. Sehyoon raises his eyebrows at him. “Be funny and weird again.”

Sehyoon laughs. Donghun squishes his face into Sehyoon’s shoulder.

“Ah,” Donghun murmurs. “But I misjudged how serious this is, huh?”

“I don’t know,” Sehyoon answers slowly. “We all worry about how he’ll turn out, but…he’s out, right? I mean, he has turned out. No matter what, Yuchan is a good kid.”

“Hah,” says Donghun, muffled in Sehyoon’s shirt. “He_ is._”

Even with the sun down, the night has only partly cooled. The humid air holds pleasant heat, steeping the smell of maturing grass. The sound of the river cuts in and out of their consciousnesses, sometimes drowned out in the highway drone, sometimes asserting itself in a rumble like a light breeze from the bottom of the bay. The rain will come any day now.

Donghun lowers himself onto his side so he can rest his head in Sehyoon’s lap. With that thickly feigned innocence he always has, sweetly, in a convincing state of abstraction, he traces his fingers over Sehyoon’s thigh. Sehyoon remembers a time when it would have been possible to do this here, but it’s too crowded now, even in the dark.

“You want us to leave this place,” says Sehyoon. “To go somewhere private.” Donghun whines happily. He pokes Sehyoon’s stomach with the end of his chicken-free skewer. Sehyoon catches Donghun’s wrist and twists the skewer away, calm but forceful enough to make a point.

“Kind of,” says Donghun, straightening. He sucks the end of the skewer delicately. Sehyoon can feel his sidelong glance. “But I guess we can’t go home yet?”

“You try to take a nice boy out…” Sehyoon complains under his breath with a chuckle. 

“I’m not nice,” says Donghun. He gently pushes the skewer aside with his tongue and shakes the last drops from the bottle into his mouth. “I’m…I want attention.”

“Well,” says Sehyoon, “we could always do the laundry.”  
  


**  
  


When they get home, Sehyoon sends Donghun inside for the hamper.

“In and out in ten seconds,” he warns. “If you spend any longer I’m leaving you there.”

Donghun reels out onto the balcony within the promised time, clutching the loaded basket to his stomach, faintly pink. A giggle rises then fizzles out queasily in Sehyoon’s chest.

“Are they that loud?” he laughs. He knows the answer.

Donghun shakes his head, out of breath. Sehyoon pushes him toward the stairs with his hands firmly on his waist—Donghun juts his hip into Sehyoon’s, resting his back warmly against Sehyoon’s chest before beginning the descent.

Down in the basement laundry room, the light flickers on automatically with a dull, greenish whine. Sehyoon switches it off again—damn, too dark at this time of night. Donghun groans. Sehyoon fumbles for the chain-pull incandescent bulb over the dryers. That light is yellow, at least, and casts solid shadows better for discretion, even if it makes thick swirls of lint shine in midair like swarming flies.

None of the machines are running, mercifully. Sehyoon barely has time to prop the “Closed for maintenance” sign up in the hall and jam a chair beneath the doorknob before Donghun shuffles through the darkness, out of the warm circle of dryer-lint light, to wrap a hand around his thigh.

“You’re supposed to put the clothes in first,” Sehyoon whispers. Donghun digs his chin into Sehyoon’s shoulder.

“Forgot to grab change upstairs,” Donghun says. His makes his voice sound like soft music from a party a few apartments down—sweet, bleary, cutting in and out. He’s like this at his worst. Sehyoon toys with the idea of telling him he doesn’t need to work this hard for it, to embarrass him, but decides against it. He kind of enjoys Donghun desperate like this.

He turns around. He ushers Donghun backward, half-lifting with his hand under Donghun’s knee, half-shoving, until they’re under the light again.

Donghun doesn’t wait for anything. He pulls his shirt over his head and knocks his baseball cap to the ground between their feet. With curled toes he shuffles out of his shoes.

Sehyoon smiles patiently while Donghun’s rumpled hair glows in front of the exposed bulb and a fine gold line borders his summer-browned shoulders. Sehyoon considers himself talented for being able to look at Donghun directly without breaking down at all that pretty. He covers Donghun’s bare belly in his open palm, traces the tendons through Donghun’s neck as his head sinks back. Unbothered. He works his thumb up Donghun’s chin toward his pouting lower lip. His mouth is a sad bow set in high, smooth cheeks; his eyes are sad too, deviously sad, deliberately precious. There’s that eyebrow piercing that still sits too heavy and always a little red, that Sehyoon finds both funny and hot. There’s Yuchan’s bite mark, now just a tiny scabbed semicircle on his chest—Sehyoon tests it with his fingertip and Donghun huffs reproachfully, shaking out his hair. He butts his jaw against Sehyoon’s palm and slips his whole hand into Sehyoon’s waistband. 

His knuckles are bony, the skin of his fingers coarse and dry. When Donghun touches him, Sehyoon crumbles a little more than he could from just looking. His touch is so distinct, his hands so different from the others’ hands.

Their bodies work together, aligning like pack hunters in the dark. When he catches Sehyoon swelling slightly in his grasp, Donghun turns his head so his face floods with yellow light. His eyes are closed. Sehyoon’s talent for enduring beauty abandons him all at once, like his spirit escaping on a sigh.

Sehyoon thinks about how much of the time they rely on sensing each other. Feeling without looking. In the beginning, in the time without mirrors, they dedicated every day to looking at each other. Then just as completely, they had to forget. They had to learn how _not_ to look at each other—to just feel what the other person was thinking or doing, quietly, through touch and sound, while keeping their eyes fixed on cameras, or on fans. They memorized not the sight of one another—which has changed since the mirrorless times, anyway—but their interlocking topologies. They way each of them takes up space. The way they take up space together. 

Sehyoon’s stomach tightens as his thighs take up space together with Donghun’s thighs, as Donghun’s hand creates warm friction through Sehyoon’s underwear. Sometimes sensing in the dark is just fine.

But when he can look, too, really look, at Donghun—face flooded with that yellow light— 

“If you didn’t already hear it too much, I’d call you pretty.”

Sehyoon pays for that. Donghun stops teasing and pushes Sehyoon’s sweatpants down, just until the elastic constricts around his thighs. Donghun lowers his body so Sehyoon’s eyes are just barely above his. Sehyoon feels a lurch, a hot rush in his head, as he grows painfully fast. He pitches forward a little, dragging Donghun with him into the machines, which make a hollow booming sound. Not quite stunned by the impact, laughing, Donghun lowers his body even more. He works his hand into Sehyoon’s underwear and circles his fingers over Sehyoon’s dick.

“I’m actually gonna _need_ you to call me pretty,” he says. His smile is vicious, twinkling. Sehyoon tastes oil and alcohol on Donghun’s breath. He remembers how irritating Donghun’s been all night. He leans forward with a growl, trying to menace him, but Donghun just smiles pleasantly and inches his hand lower.

“You do think,” he breathes—his whisper tickles the thin-feeling skin over Sehyoon’s throat. He turns his wrist to lightly slide his fingers under Sehyoon’s balls; the heavy, pressurized feeling with nowhere to go makes Sehyoon give a low, reluctant groan. “You _do_ think I’m pretty, don’t you? You don’t have to say it after all, not when you’re _so_ hard…”

Sehyoon is dully aware that he’s being baited, but he can’t endure it long enough to find out why. He grabs Donghun by the hair and by the thigh and lifts him off his feet, all but slamming him down on top of a dryer. Flat on his back on the echoing empty machine, Donghun’s bare stomach stretches and shudders with a winded laugh. His knees are slightly raised, brushing Sehyoon’s waist; his hand, which released Sehyoon in involuntary self-defense, palms the bulging front of his own jeans. Sehyoon bears down on him, trapping him against the metal. As he hunches down to undo Donghun’s fly, Donghun catches him by the ear.

“_Be rough with me_,” Donghun begs.

Sehyoon laughs. 

“Ah,” he says. “I get it.”

Donghun shoves up at Sehyoon with exasperated eyes.

“What? No, don’t stop. What does that mean?”

Sehyoon pulls Donghun out of his jeans. His own fingernails are short and blunt, but he scratches them back and forth along Donghun’s collarbone as best he can, clawing four pale tracks from Donghun’s chest down to his navel. Donghun grimaces and twists his hand in Sehyoon’s shirt. God, even the sounds he makes are pretty.

“Nothing,” Sehyoon says. He rolls Donghun over so the hollow drum of the dryer clangs and rumbles. He presses his erection against the back of Donghun’s thigh, where he can feel the fine hairs over Donghun’s skin rise in a chill. He pulls Donghun’s head forward by the hair and grazes the back of his neck with his teeth. Donghun utters something like a whimper and a laugh. He extends his foot toward the ground for balance, leaning on folded arms on the top of the machine. His leg rubs softly against Sehyoon’s dick as his body shifts. Sehyoon huffs and lets Donghun’s shoulder blot spit from his lower lip. He reaches down and finds Donghun’s dick in the narrow space against the dryer; Donghun rocks his hips forward and grinds desperately into Sehyoon’s hand, his back flexing against Sehyoon’s stomach in the dark. 

“Oh, um—” 

“Lube in the hamper,” Donghun hisses. “But wait—pull my hair again—”

Sehyoon smirks to himself and yanks Donghun’s head back. Donghun’s cock twitches in Sehyoon’s palm. Sehyoon drags his own dick along the side of Donghun’s ass before shoving him against the dryer, no longer supporting him, stepping back to rummage for lube. Donghun staggers, hangs his head between his shoulder blades and groans. His breath flares in his belly. He’s hard, the head of his dick pressed up to the metal, obscured by the slim twist of his waist. 

Sehyoon recovers the bottle from the heap of dirty clothes and wets his hand before moving in on Donghun again. He gets some for himself and slides the rest down Donghun’s dick, getting a shiver and a yelp from the coolness, a panting breath when it begins to feel good again. Sehyoon rubs his hard-on over Donghun’s ass, pushing him forward as he fucks clumsily into Sehyoon’s hand. Donghun gasps and beats his palm on the top of the machine. 

“_Oh_ god, fuck me.”

Sehyoon hesitates. He feels wild, he feels like he’d do anything. He wants to touch Donghun everywhere. He needs a lot of him, and now. But this isn’t normally how they…

“You sure?”

Donghun gives a shout of scathing laughter. His knees buckle a little as he reaches back at Sehyoon.

“What do you think?”

Sehyoon recenters. He pushes Donghun’s shoulders down roughly.

“Watch it,” he says, pretending to threaten him. “Nothing if you don’t play nice.”

Donghun tries to pull Sehyoon to him by grabbing his hip; Sehyoon catches his hand and twists it behind his back.

“Ah—” Donghun sighs, short of breath and sore. “You got it.”

Sehyoon squeezes lube out onto Donghun’s lower back and trails it down his body until Donghun gives a squeamish, humiliated _ugh_, not stopping until everything is a mess. He enjoys how Donghun’s spine curves when he slides his hand down under him and slips a finger in. How Donghun rolls his head on his neck and tries to crash his body into Sehyoon’s behind him, slick and lithe and uncontrollable. Sehyoon hangs his forehead on Donghun’s shoulder and touches him. He curls his middle finger, flexes his wrist, makes Donghun whine two different notes. Sore, full wanting pulls him heavily down into the thrumming warmth of Donghun’s skin. He feels the way Donghun rocks on his finger, the softly knotted pressure, and shivers. He makes sure Donghun can feel how hard his cock against the back of his thigh. 

Donghun winces and laughs, tongue almost jutting past his teeth.

“Your hands have calluses, you jock.”

“Well, are there—?” 

“In my jeans,” Donghun says impatiently. “Hurry up.”

Sehyoon feels around in the pocket of the scrunched pants cast aside on the machines by Donghun’s ear.

“You could grab lube _and_ condoms,” he laughs at Donghun. “But not change for the actual laundry.”

“Oh my god, shut _up!_”

“_Brat_,” says Sehyoon. He tears open the foil with his teeth.

“Dick,” spits Donghun.

“Slut.”

“…Sue me.”

Sehyoon braces Donghun against the dryer. He pulls out his finger slowly, drawing a soft, indignant moan. He tries not to fumble much. He adjusts his height, adjusts Donghun’s body with some effort. 

The way Donghun sounds is the way Sehyoon feels, a telltale low note as Sehyoon pushes the head of his dick shallowly into Donghun. That breathless, hitching, almost claustrophobic moment. It takes a second for their bodies to connect, but when they do—

Sehyoon sinks forward all at once and hits Donghun somewhere deep, hears a muffled shout. Sehyoon’s not loud, as a rule, but he feels like being loud right now. Donghun feels _good,_ already moving his hips, moaning. Soft, tight motion over Sehyoon’s dick makes him grit his teeth. He gnaws at Donghun’s shoulder. The noise Donghun makes at that is lost in his other noises.

Suddenly _pretty_ is the last thing on Sehyoon’s mind.

He resumes stroking Donghun’s dick with his still-wet hand; Donghun writhes and cries out. His head falls back until his hair skims Sehyoon’s chest. Despite his dainty gasps and airy body, Donghun leads forcefully, in a way that makes Sehyoon laugh with a pounding heart, with ringing ears. Fast _enough._ Pushing back and fucking forward. He pulls Sehyoon toward him. He digs his fingernails into the back of Sehyoon’s free hand, which is planted on the dryer to support them both—Sehyoon grimaces at the pinching on his skin. He risks losing his balance to grab Donghun’s wrist and force it down where it can’t claw at him. Donghun makes a satisfied grunt. Anything he can do to get a rise—and Sehyoon is too pleased to give it. He shoves Donghun’s hips forward into his circled hand, loudening Donghun’s sounds, doing his best to wear him out. 

Sehyoon feels pressure flare across his body with Donghun’s every intake, but it’s working. Donghun slows down, whines louder and longer, pauses to pant with his palms against the top of the machine. Sehyoon matches his pace but doesn’t ease up. He’s keeping it together while Donghun’s toes curl against the grimy laundry room floor. Sehyoon feels Donghun tense beneath him, dick twitching back in Sehyoon’s hand. Donghun tries to laugh, but only sighs.

Sehyoon’s other hand still pins Donghun’s wrist loosely to the dryer. Donghun gathers his strength and pushes against Sehyoon with an unanticipated motion, fluid and deep. Sehyoon’s vision doubles as the intense stroke drives the last thought from his brain. Donghun wrenches his hand around, palm upward—not to free himself, but to lock his fingers in with Sehyoon’s. 

Sehyoon doesn’t even know where his hands are, where his body is. He knows his pulse is hammering against Donghun’s through their palms, through every other part of them. He knows he’s not making it, he’s coming, no more control. He feels Donghun absorb the shudder and the only sound Sehyoon has made.

“_Fuck_,” Donghun murmurs. He squeezes Sehyoon’s hand tightly, rests his forehead on the cool metal, and comes. 

The quiet of the evening violently floods the room. It weighs on Sehyoon’s eardrums like a change in air pressure. The concrete-and-fluorescent hum of the dorm building, has that always been there? Sehyoon half expects the cheery buzzer of a washing machine to go off. 

He remembers where his hands are. One is warm and slimy—he wipes it on Donghun’s thigh to a loud but breathless noise of protest—and the other is sweaty, sore, its palm still clamped hard against Donghun’s. He feels his face begin to burn. He lets go so he can put both hands on Donghun’s waist when he pulls out. 

Donghun groans and throws all of his weight onto the dryer, face hidden in his arms. After a moment, he turns around toward Sehyoon. He slides into a crouch, naked, with his back against the machine. His arms stick out from where they rest on his knees. He tilts his head and flashes a pink-cheeked grin.

Sehyoon scratches the back of his neck. He’s finding it difficult to look at Donghun without breaking into an awkward smile himself. So_ pretty._ So _irritating. _

“Did that help?” he asks. He looks at the palm of his hand, the one Donghun grabbed when he came. He remembers the impression of Donghun’s long, rough fingers on his own. That was nice. And very weird.

Donghun raises his eyebrows, as if forming a refined opinion on the chicken-and-soju-fueled basement sex.

“Sure,” he says at length. “Well, God knows, right?”

“I hope not,” says Sehyoon. He scrunches his forehead, trying to figure out what to do with the used condom he’s holding gingerly between his finger and thumb, waiting for Donghun to laugh at his joke.

“What?”

“I said I hope…never mind.”

Sehyoon decides to fold the condom back in its wrapper. Then he picks out a sock from the neglected laundry—one of Junhee’s, especially full of holes, unlikely to be missed—and puts the re-wrapped condom inside of that. Then he puts that in the deep front pocket of his sweats. As he reaches in, his fingertips brush the cool, thin curve of a coin. He feels around and finds several more. He realizes he knows how much is there. He’d forgotten until now. It’s exact laundry change.

He looks down at Donghun, who has been slowly turning his own clothes right-side-out and watching Sehyoon’s condom inventions with interest.

“Guess what.”  
  


**  
  


When the laundry is finally running, they sneak back upstairs. Sehyoon tries to keep close to Donghun, to stop him from prying, but Donghun beats him to the dorm and charges in. Inside, he gambols to the unlatched door of Junhee and Byeongkwan’s room and nudges it wider with his shoulder before Sehyoon can catch him.

“Get back from there,” Sehyoon hisses, trying to be stern—but Donghun beams at him and waves him over.

“Look at them,” he whispers.

Sehyoon pokes his head over Donghun’s shoulder. 

“Ah, cute…”

The kids are piled together on the bottom bunk. They look funny, Byeongkwan especially tiny with his arm around Junhee’s chest, big gangly Yuchan sprawled shirtless over both of them. Junhee is in clean pajamas, wrapped snugly in a blanket. His face is sunken in total, deathly sleep, mouth open. His lower lip is swollen. Sehyoon looks at Byeongkwan’s eyelids resting lightly shut and doubts he’s actually asleep.

Donghun’s head swivels around the room, trying to take in the wadded heap of bloody clothes and napkins on the floor, the impact tools and dirty rope, with bulging eyes. Sehyoon grabs the top of Donghun’s skull and turns his gaze forward again.

“Don’t be nosy.”

Donghun sighs heavily through his nostrils and allows himself to be pulled back from the threshold.

“Ahh…it bothers me. I’m jealous. That’s what it is. I’m a jealous old hag.”

Sehyoon feels his patience coming back.

“This is for you, you know,” he says. “After all this, who do you think Yuchan’s going back to?”

Donghun hums and chuckles, mouth pressed shut.

“If only,” he says.

“Trust me,” says Sehyoon.

Donghun crosses the room and flings himself onto the couch. He shuffles around for the remote but doesn’t find it. With a soft groan, he gets up and turns the TV on by hand, waking up the video game from where they left it that evening. Most lights aren’t even on in the dorm yet—the glow of the loading screen makes Donghun look half-lit and unearthly. But his self-amusing pout is very real. He untangles the cords of the controllers and waggles one at Sehyoon.

“One more round?”

Sehyoon rubs his face and leans over the back of the couch to grab the controller from Donghun.

“No, come over here.”

Sehyoon climbs over to sit next to Donghun. He’s sleepy. He meant to wear Donghun out, but he thinks Donghun got him first. Donghun picks Princess Daisy again. He presses his ear to Sehyoon’s shoulder. Sehyoon knuckles his eyelids. He shuffles his arm around Donghun’s neck and locks him there with both hands on the controller.

“You’re not tired?”

“Flow-er Cup…” sings Donghun softly, ignoring him.

Sehyoon sighs and picks Baby Luigi.

“Okay,” he says. “Flower Cup.”


	8. favorite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junhee needs a time out. Donghun gets what he wants.

Sehyoon’s eyelids unstick in the half-darkness, just enough to see cloud cover through the blurry window. It’s cool, stuffy, late-summer-dawn cool, the air contracting on his skin. The sun won’t be out much today, but the rain won’t come yet either. He can feel the 5:15 alarm about to go off, annoyance and an ache behind his eyes, a prickling of the fine hairs on the back of his hand.

Donghun stirs against him, peeling his mouth from Sehyoon’s shoulder with a faint, angelic noise of apology.

A sleepy grumble directed at Sehyoon asks _What time is it?_

Sehyoon rolls onto his back and smacks Donghun’s thigh in a way that answers, _No use going back to sleep._

“You weren’t sleeping,” Donghun says aloud.

“Who sleeps anymore,” Sehyoon says. Exhaustion helps insulate his voice from bitterness, but Donghun picks up on it anyway.

“Oh, you sound rough.”

That’s the closest thing to a _sorry_ Donghun has for him, and Sehyoon accepts it without a grudge. Donghun may have been the one who climbed down from the top bunk last night, but they’re on the same team right now. Team tired.

Donghun twists his finger in a strand of Sehyoon’s bleached dead hair and tugs; Sehyoon brushes him away.

“Don’t.”

Donghun gives a shivery little sigh of amusement.

“You’re sick of it too, aren’t you?”

Sehyoon isn’t sure which part Donghun means.

“I’m sick of _you_,” he says, trying to smile with his voice in the dark.

“Boo. How can I win you back?”

Donghun’s hand slides down Sehyoon’s belly and hovers just under his navel. Sehyoon calmly rocks on his hip.

“Start with praise. Start with…_Sehni cute. Sehni sexy._”

Donghun laughs sharply but dips his head close to Sehyoon’s ear. He draws his hand back up the length of Sehyoon’s torso and fans his palm on Sehyoon’s chest. Sehyoon flexes the one pec to send Donghun into a giggling fit, but the light brush of Donghun’s little finger over Sehyoon’s nipple gets him back for it, melting the morning hunger pangs into a warm stomachache.

Donghun struggles to get the words out through a low, breathy laugh that flutters against Sehyoon’s neck like wings. A not-quite-tingling feeling, fizzy and numb, moves over Sehyoon’s skin where Donghun’s laughter touches it.

“_Sehni sexy_,” purrs Donghun. Sehyoon shakes him off again, pretending to wince.

“Oh, no,” he says. “No chance.”

Donghun produces a convincingly wounded huff and lets go.

The bedroom door whines open. Sehyoon lifts his head to see Junhee in the flat darkness, hair standing on end, pajamas hanging off him, one eye scrunched groggily.

Junhee shuffles toward the bed but leaps back with a yelp as Sehyoon’s alarm goes off like a land mine on the floor between them. He sinks to his knees in exaggerated shock and kneads his throat with one hand. Donghun rolls over onto his face to muffle his own startled sound.

Sehyoon stretches from the bottom bunk to silence his phone.

“Oh, that _scared_ me—” Junhee’s still hoarse from snoring.

“Why is he in here? Kick him out,” says Donghun through the pillow. Junhee sways on all fours with a high-pitched laugh, trying and failing to get back to his feet. He adds extra flails and flourishes as he goes down again, like a clown miming drunkenness, like someone’s let the air out of him. Even disoriented, half asleep, he’s performing for them.

Sehyoon groans through his nose and recenters himself on the bed. He holds his phone screen close to his eyes with one hand and beckons Junhee with the other.

“C’mere.”

Junhee crawls over and Donghun helps Sehyoon haul him up onto the mattress. Junhee lies back on Sehyoon’s arm and Sehyoon jostles him, playing with his ear, rubbing his stomach under the swishy pajamas, enjoying the ticklish squeeze of Junhee’s abs beneath his hand.

“Ti-ime to get u-up,” says Junhee, sleepy and singsong.

“Yes, captain,” Sehyoon laughs.

Junhee moans through a grin.

“Oh, I don’t want to today,” he says. He turns his head to expose his throat. Is that flirting? It’s worse than usual if so.

“So don’t,” says Donghun. “Fuck an awards show, right? Let’s just close promotions now. No practice. We can walk somewhere and eat something good together instead. I’m sure the company would understand.”

“Mm,” agrees Sehyoon. He smooths Junhee’s hair sympathetically. “Meat.”

He’s not sure _meat_ came out as coaxing as he meant it.

Junhee hums through his nose and squirms his face close to Sehyoon’s. Sehyoon sees a flash of teeth and yanks his head back just before Junhee’s canine can graze his ear.

“Hey! Stop that.”

Junhee doesn’t stop that. Face contorted in what he seems to think is a roguish wink, Junhee twists around and tries to bite Sehyoon on the chin. Donghun comes to the rescue by throwing his arm across Junhee’s neck and pulling until Junhee falls against him with a wheeze.

“It is so _early_,” Donghun roars in Junhee’s ear. “Go away!”

“No!”

Junhee cackles and tries again to get free.

“Time to get up! Time to _ROCK!_” He belts the last words out in a booming, stadium-announcer yodel, making the sign of the horns with both his hands. Donghun can’t keep it together.

Sehyoon frowns at the teary, hysterical look on Junhee’s face. He’s giggling until his forehead stands out white and red, but something there looks twisted and painful, too, like a sharp object sticking in his throat. Maybe it’s just the morning ordeal of being wrenched from sleep, but Sehyoon has the sudden urge to soothe him more, despite the biting and writhing.

Donghun pretends to feel otherwise. He shoves Junhee upright, palms flat against his back. Junhee starts to cry out in play-protest, purposely throwing his weight back harder, making himself heavier, resisting—but when Donghun’s knuckles bend and his fingertips dig into Junhee’s shoulders, Junhee makes another sound. A rare, quiet, not-great one.

Donghun pulls his hands away in surprise. Junhee flops forward where he sits, elbows on his knees. A grimace bares his bottom teeth to the gums. A split second later, the usual grin is back, his tongue poking out as leftover endorphins wake up in his body.

“Oh?” says Donghun. “You good?”

Junhee beams. He passes off a flinch as a tiny wiggling dance that makes Donghun quirk his eyebrow.

“I’m incredible.”

Sehyoon feels faint discomfort in his chest like moths.

“Were you up with them again last night?” he asks.

He knows the answer, because every other night Donghun comes to him whining for attention and hair-pulling and Mario Kart, because every other morning Byeongkwan smells like Junhee, because Yuchan’s eyes are bloodshot and wandering, and the chaos and confusion and neediness and _noise_ won’t let Sehyoon _sleep_.

Junhee tries to ignore him.

“Park Junhee.”

“…Yes?”

“Where do you even find the time?”

It’s a pointless question. They steal from resting hours, the only hours they have to work with.

Donghun quietly supports Sehyoon’s interrogation with a sulk in Junhee’s direction.

Junhee scratches the back of his neck, furrowing his brow in fabricated innocence.

“Aren’t you tired?” Sehyoon asks flatly.

He knows the answer to this one, too. Junhee’s been getting loopy and feverish. He’s too high all the time, his smile too wide, his demeanor too funny. It’s hard to catch him—the higher he is, the faster he moves, the more fun he is to watch. But there has to be a comedown. His body will eventually lose track of all its uses.

Junhee scratches further down his neck, under the collar of his pajamas, more furiously as his expression grows warmer, guiltier.

“No.”

Junhee’s hand comes up with dried blood under the fingernails. Before he can hide it, Sehyoon grabs him.

“Let me see,” he says. He gives a patient smile, but it’s not a request.

Junhee doesn’t move. Sehyoon lifts Junhee’s shirt. Donghun reaches through the bunk posts to switch on the desk lamp. Junhee pulls his lips tight and throws a fake-shy, heavy-lashed glance to the corner of the room. He squirms in the light but only a little, only for show; then he puffs out a long breath and rests his chin on his chest.

“Oh, wow,” says Sehyoon. He hears himself say it like he might to a kid brandishing a bug—it’s kind of upsetting to look at, but Junhee’s so pleased with himself, it would hurt him if Sehyoon showed it.

Still, Sehyoon wrinkles his nose as he surveys Junhee’s shoulders, his spine, the back of his neck. He’s bruised to hell. The skin there dissolves in different hues like sun in murky water, black and blue and blurred. Some long lines are scabbed, have definitely bled, bleed again. Some impacts are days old and haloed in green; some are new, still swollen and raised. Some thorn-pricks scatter almost imperceptibly, like freckles now, like flecks of sand.

The marks all inscribe the sounds he must have made, the tears and spit and sighs. That part _is_ hot to imagine. Except it’s written differently this time—in a darker, bloodier, clumsier hand. Byeongkwan’s work tends to be on the subtle side—chafing from restraints, welts that sting cruelly but fade fast, resembling old scars one day and disappearing entirely the next. He knows how to balance pain and humiliation, to keep the secrets Junhee’s body can’t. But Yuchan—

“Yuchan’s kind of rough, isn’t he?”

“He’s awesome.”

Junhee breathes under Sehyoon’s touch. He radiates shame the way most people emit pride—gleefully. Luxuriously. His eyes shine, like _look how bad I’ve been._

Sehyoon gives the back of Junhee’s head a soft shove, trying to say _don’t be horny about this at five in the morning, you worry me._

“Well, that rules out the slit-backed shirts,” Donghun says, face squished lazily on his fist.

“Bullshit,” says Junhee. “I look amazing in those. That’s what makeup is for.”

“Really. I thought makeup was for your smile lines.”

Junhee bites his lip and waggles his eyebrows at Donghun, who grins.

Sehyoon hesitates.

“Good for you,” he says. “But I thought you weren’t…supposed to bruise up like this?”

He already knows that’s no use. The mere idea of trouble gets the wrong reaction out of Junhee, a warm hum, like a pleasant daydream. Donghun smile turns scornful.

Junhee tosses his head a little, trying to adopt an imploring expression. He beats a fist against his knee.

“Ah, but this is _special_. It’s for _Yuchan_. I’ll hide it if that’s what you’re—”

Junhee breaks off into a shudder as Donghun slips close, past Sehyoon’s assessing hands, and fixes his mouth over a scrape on Junhee’s shoulder blade. Donghun’s tongue flashes between his teeth to taste the cut before he seals his lips over Junhee’s skin and pulls hard, crushing blood vessels. He digs his thumb shamelessly into the purplest marks on Junhee’s back. A panicky laugh shakes loose from Junhee’s throat like a bird scared out of a tree.

Then Donghun bites him.

Junhee crows and writhes. His head falls hard on Sehyoon’s shoulder; Sehyoon catches him by the skull and pins him there while swatting Donghun away. Donghun detaches with a smirk. Junhee’s shirt shifts back down to cover his back.

“For _Yuchan_, huh?” says Donghun.

Junhee bolts upright and throws Donghun a provocative look. The weak yellow light of the lamp makes him appear scrappy and drawn. Donghun seems pleased to see that Junhee has some fight left in him.

There’s movement at the door again. This time it’s Byeongkwan, already dressed in sweats, swollen-faced and sweet. He catches Sehyoon’s eye over Junhee’s shoulder and Sehyoon feels his brain stutter as he tries to fix Byeongkwan with a questioning stare. Byeongkwan brushes him off, smirking prettily, _in a minute_ face.

“Junhee-hyung, there you are,” he says. “Go, I put out some clothes for you.”

Junhee pitches his voice up, airy and teasing.

“So thoughtful…” he says, still staring down Donghun.

Donghun jerks his arm back as if to hit him, eyes squeezed in a sneer, but Junhee doesn’t flinch. Instead he climbs off the mattress and makes a show of gamboling over to Byeongkwan in the doorway. If he’s trying to get the hyungs to roll their eyes at him, it’s working. Junhee is a punk at all hours, in all conditions.

Byeongkwan catches Junhee’s arm on his way out. Junhee flexes his tongue over his canine before Byeongkwan releases him.

When Junhee goes, Byeongkwan revolves fully into the room. He crosses the floor and springs to fill the warm Junhee-shaped impression in Sehyoon’s lap, ignoring Sehyoon’s _oof_ and Donghun’s groan when the impact moves the bed.

“Kim Byeongkwan,” says Donghun, scooting to the floor in search of usable track pants, “I am going to kill you.”

Sehyoon lets Byeongkwan pull his arms around his chest like body armor.

“Try it.”

Donghun rises onto his knees to lunge at Sehyoon. Sehyoon tightens his hold on Byeongkwan, who hiccups with frightened laughter as he pushes Donghun away with his feet. Donghun takes the wadded-up pair of socks in his hand and beats it into Byeongkwan’s leg before leaning back against the dresser in defeat. His resentful glare is cartoonish.

Byeongkwan sinks against Sehyoon, winded. Sehyoon can hear the stuffiness of sleep in his breath and rubs Byeongkwan’s chest with the heel of his hand. He nudges his chin into Byeongkwan’s temple to let him know he has a thought.

“Hm?”

“You’re in trouble,” Sehyoon says. “You can’t keep letting Yuchan lay into Junhee like that.”

Before Byeongkwan acknowledges him, Sehyoon hears him mouth the _can’t_ part like a strange echo, like a new word he’s trying to commit to memory.

“Why not?”

“Because Junhee’s tired,” says Sehyoon simply. “Yuchan’s tired, too. _You’re_ tired. Nights are originally for sleeping, you know.”

Byeongkwan scoffs at “you’re tired.”

“That,” he says, “is ridiculous.”

Sehyoon ignores that. He’s used to Byeongkwan’s inflated sense of physical integrity.

“Enough of this shit about being tired,” says Donghun. “You can do what you want with Junhee, he’s had worse. I just want Yuchan back.”

“Who’s keeping him from you?” says Byeongkwan, so derisively that Sehyoon gives him a warning shake.

Donghun lets out a sort of strangled cry of rage that mounts then bursts into a soft groan, like a bubble full of smoke.

“_Everybody_,” he hisses. “When’s Yuchan supposed to come to me, huh? I’m supposed to be his favorite. None of you—”

Sehyoon can feel Byeongkwan tensing on his lap as they both see Donghun waver, his socks still flapping in his hands when he gestures morosely from the floor. He’s being stupid, maybe, but his eyes are shining sincerely.

“None of you ever felt the same way. None of you ever saw him the way I do, but _then_ he does something _interesting_—something with _me_, for _me_, by the way—and suddenly he’s yours to take away too? Another toy for your freak shit? And for what, to wear Junhee out until he’s all punch-drunk and useless? To make you feel important, while all I can do is sit around and fuck your boyfriend—doesn’t that bother you? Byeongkwan-ah?”

Byeongkwan chokes down a laugh before it can break on his face in more than a lazy blink, but Sehyoon lets himself smile pleasantly. Byeongkwan’s fingers brush backward, up the side of Sehyoon’s thigh, and Sehyoon lets that happen, too. Byeongkwan’s retort broadcasts in Sehyoon’s brain just barely in time for Sehyoon to clasp his hand over Byeongkwan’s mouth. Byeongkwan sighs into Sehyoon’s fingers but holds his tongue.

“Now, is the boyfriend-fucking so bad?” Sehyoon asks Donghun, trying to look hurt but losing to a grin. Byeongkwan squirms delightedly.

Donghun reddens. His loneliness in jealousy is so easy to use against him, it’s almost unfair.

“Are you going to let Yuchan come back to me, or not?”

Byeongkwan removes Sehyoon’s hand from his mouth.

“Ah, hyung. You know I can’t say no to you.”

***

When Byeongkwan returns to their bedroom, Junhee’s sitting cross-legged at the mirror behind the door, dabbing concealer under his eyes with his ring finger. He’s put on the clothes Byeongkwan chose for him. The big green sweatshirt, just barely too short to cover his whole torso, with a stretched-out neckline that exposes the end of a welt on his shoulder. Old track pants with flaking nylon, bright ugly socks. The outfit is lousy on purpose, so Junhee can look bad, so people can ask _who on earth dressed you today?_ and Junhee can answer _Byeongkwan did._

Byeongkwan crouches behind Junhee quietly. Junhee’s eyes dart to the corner of the mirror where Byeongkwan’s are reflected; the slow, sleepy scrunch of his eyelids softens in recognition.

“The earrings too,” Byeongkwan says into Junhee’s hair.

Junhee pauses. He glances at the earrings in question, tiny red drop clip-ons arranged neatly on a folded scarf at his feet.

“Those look old,” he says. He’s hoarse; he clears his throat. “Grandmother earrings. And they’re too pretty. What if I lose them?”

“You won’t lose them. I want you to wear them.”

Junhee rubs his ring finger with his thumb, the pasty pale makeup smudging between them. His concealer is badly blended and does nothing for him—he still looks hunched and tired, only with light circles under his eyes instead of dark ones. He flashes challenging teeth at Byeongkwan’s reflection, an all-too-familiar form of _make me._

Byeongkwan pushes two fingers into the tender stretch of skin under Junhee’s jaw and turns his head. He feels his way across the floor, wondering if he’ll be able to unlatch an earring with one hand without looking—his fingers catch the cool curve of tarnished brass and gem-cut glass and it hinges open with minimal fumbling. Junhee watches Byeongkwan’s face as Byeongkwan clips it onto his earlobe.

“Ah,” says Junhee, musingly. “It hurts.”

Byeongkwan affixes the other one, pleased to see Junhee’s sincere twitch of discomfort. He pulls Junhee closer and starts massaging away the concealer mess with the pad of his thumb.

“If grandmothers endured it, so can you, right?”

Junhee’s head rocks slightly under the force of Byeongkwan’s rubbing thumb. He whines and bites back a smile. When the concealer is sheer and smooth, Byeongkwan chafes Junhee’s cheek, too, working a temporary rosiness into the surface of his skin.

“There,” he says. “You look healthy now.”

“Of course. You take good care of me.”

Byeongkwan tries to stop himself blinking at the unexpected pang, but he’s too slow. He feels his eyelashes flutter. The nagging voice of his estranged conscience is finally loud enough for him to make out the words. _Not as good as you should._

“Don’t—I mean, I’ve been reckless with you, haven’t I.”

Junhee widens his eyes comically at Byeongkwan.

“That’s new. Everything okay?”

Byeongkwan smirks with mild embarrassment. He hates when he’s trying to menace Junhee and Junhee starts mothering him.

“Hyung...”

“Byeongkwan-ah. Don’t ever worry about me. It’s my job to look out for you too, remember that.”

Byeongkwan can’t control the full-body flinch as Junhee reaches for his hand. He knows what Junhee’s thinking—the people who have been responsible for him before and failed, Byeongkwan is nothing like that, he wants to be better than that, he works every day to be better than that—Junhee warmly, gorgeously, innocently trusting that he _is_ is too much for him to bear.

“I’m putting you on a rest,” Byeongkwan blurts. “A long one. No impact, no fucking, no…whatever. I’ll come up with some group games, if you’re good, but I’ll have to decide about that.”

Junhee’s hand falls. Byeongkwan forces himself to look at Junhee’s face no matter what’s waiting for him there. He’s prepared for disappointment, betrayal, denial—but for a horrible, stomach-knotting, abnormally guilt-stricken second, Byeongkwan is afraid he’ll see relief.

He sees nothing of the sort. Junhee protects Byeongkwan’s heart with a simple, silly pout, as if Byeongkwan just reported that the corner store was out of the ice cream he asked for.

“Aww, really? When? For how long?”

“Today after practice. Until Chuseok, probably.”

Junhee pouts again, puffs out his cheeks wistfully, then pouts some more. His attempt to have fun, to be funny for Byeongkwan, hurts more than a tantrum would have.

“Oh. That’s three weeks. That _is_ long.”

“You’ll make it,” says Byeongkwan. “You won’t have a choice.”

Junhee cocks his head. He thinks he looks cunning, little dope.

“We’ll see,” he says impishly.

“I won’t let anyone near you,” says Byeongkwan, fighting to sound smug.

Junhee leans close to Byeongkwan’s face. A wide, real smile, dangerously bright, flashes across Byeongkwan’s entire field of vision.

“That’s what I like to hear.”

***

The end of practice will be a good time to lock Junhee down. It will be the last long practice for a few weeks—they’ll be tired, giddy, hungry, eager to tear him apart. All they have to do is wait for him to lower his guard. He knows what’s coming, surely, but he forgets everything when they’re in that mirrored room.

When Sehyoon takes a water break he pulls Byeongkwan down next to him. They sit together and watch Junhee. He’s focusing hard, fine-tuning a vocal line formation, leading between Yuchan and Donghun and the mirror. When they stop, when Donghun jostles his legs and Yuchan works a knot out of his shoulder, Junhee buckles. He sits there on the floor, holding his ankles tightly, staring, trying to stretch without moving. Yuchan saunters up to him—_hyung, again?_—and Junhee nods. Their hands connect with a clap and Yuchan hoists him to his feet. They start over.

“Byeongkwan-ah!” Junhee shouts, prowling along the mirror with his hands on his hips. “Sehyoon-hyung! One more time, okay? Let’s go!”

But he surprises them by calling another break only ten minutes later.

“You’re getting weak,” Donghun says, even as he laughs and puts his hands on his own knees. Junhee glances at him and defiantly takes off in a sprinting lap of the practice room. He staggers to a halt in front of Donghun, panting through his widest, most grudging smile.

“Yuchan, you’re sleepy, right?” he says with a vague wave. “Let’s sit, just until the top of the hour, then we’ll run everything one more time and be home by eleven. Okay? Early start tomorrow.”

“Who’s sleepy?” snaps Yuchan, though he’s rubbing his eyes. Donghun catches Yuchan’s waist in the crook of his arm as he walks past, but Yuchan shakes him off, the look on his face suddenly hazy.

Sehyoon licks salt from his lips and paces to avoid becoming stiff. Donghun ambles off to the corner, pulling out his phone, pretending to be bored. Junhee and Byeongkwan walk to the water cooler. Sehyoon can hear them faintly. Byeongkwan asks Junhee something and Junhee answers _good, good._

Yuchan sinks on his haunches in the middle of the floor. He blinks slowly, yawns, scratches the back of his head. Then he lies down on his back, neck resting on folded palms, squinting into the fluorescent lights. He throws his elbow over his eyes and his breath gets slow and rumbling as he falls asleep on the spot.

Junhee circles over and slides to the floor next to Yuchan. He grips his phone tightly in his hand as he sets a ten-minute timer, then drops it onto his chest and lies there somber-faced, motionless except for the flex of his throat as he swallows. Sehyoon approaches and casts a soft shadow on Junhee’s forehead.

“You’re gonna get your strength back in ten minutes and keep us here till midnight, aren’t you.”

Junhee grins without opening his eyes.

“Oh, till one, at least.”

“Very funny. Pace yourself, huh?”

“Mm-hm.” Junhee nods, still smiling. “What do you think I’m doing now?”

Sehyoon chuckles.

“You want me to be honest?”

Junhee hums, whatever answer he thought of sinking back down into him, far beneath him now, falling away. His phone slips from his chest and bounces to the floor. The last of his humorous expression slips off somewhere too, his forehead pulling into an unconscious frown as he begins to doze.

Ten minutes pass. Junhee’s alarm wakes Yuchan first. Yuchan swivels his head—Byeongkwan catches his bleary eye across the room and gestures for him to silence Junhee’s phone. Yuchan rolls over onto his elbow and the rattling bell sound stops. Junhee moans and stirs but the quiet lets sleep swallow him again, just for a moment—just long enough for Byeongkwan to give the signal.

They all gather around Junhee’s folded body on the floor. Donghun kneels by his head, Byeongkwan over his feet, Yuchan and Sehyoon at either arm. Byeongkwan glances at Donghun; Donghun grins. Byeongkwan slaps Junhee’s legs.

“Wake up!”

Junhee starts awake and tries to twist away—they all grab him and pull him back down writhing. He comes to consciousness shrieking and laughing too hard to open his eyes.

“Ah, what is this!_ Ah! Help me!_”

Yuchan cackles while Junhee thrashes. Donghun and Sehyoon tickle him across his chest and stomach to increase the difficulty of holding him down. Byeongkwan scoots forward and sits on Junhee’s pelvis. Junhee has to let his head fall with a grunt, gasping, still wailing but unable to recoil even with the aid of reflexes.

“One minute,” Byeongkwan says. “Everyone, eat up before I clear the table.”

Fresh sweat begins to run down Junhee’s temples into his hair. Sehyoon bites him over the ribs; Donghun shoves his head against the floor and sucks the bony part of his throat until his breath whistles and he shakes. Byeongkwan backs up slightly but continues to pin Junhee down with a knee on his stomach, shin pressed into his dick, one palm on the floor next to Junhee’s face so he can look down on him as he shouts and cries.

Unsure what to do, Yuchan crouches at Junhee’s side and holds his hand and forearm tightly, even though it isn’t pain they’re dealing with, even though Yuchan still has to laugh at him. Hysterical tears pool in Junhee’s ears and splash onto the vinyl when he tosses his head. A red earring flies free and rattles across the floor.

“That’s it! Off!” Byeongkwan grins viciously and begins to push the hyungs away. They fall back, weak with laughter themselves, while Junhee rolls over onto his hands and knees, beating his fist against the floor. He stems his running nose in his sleeve; sweat soaks through his clothes as if he’s been dancing again. Byeongkwan grabs his wrist from under him, forcing him to pitch forward. That’s where he clasps the padlock bracelet on, their typical, innocuous sign—Junhee is off-limits now, until Byeongkwan says otherwise.

Yuchan slips off to the office and returns with a fistful of pens and permanent markers. Junhee lifts his head just in time to see Yuchan approaching and goes down again, useless.

Byeongkwan looks adoringly at his overgrown lieutenant.

“We all agree not to touch him, right?” Yuchan says, his loud announcer voice taking over. “Let’s sign our names on him so it’s official. Our contract.”

“What if I don’t agree!” Donghun says, wide-eyed, smiling. Byeongkwan clicks his tongue, but Donghun is already taking a pen.

Junhee can no longer pretend to resist. He lies belly-up and even pushes his sleeve back to bare some canvas for them. They tug him out of his sweatshirt anyway, his skin slick and rising into goosebumps as the air conditioning cools his sweat for the first time. Sehyoon laughs and cuffs part of Junhee’s chest dry so he can sign over his nipple in permanent marker, embellishing with friendly-faced flowers. Donghun hooks his finger in the band of Junhee’s sweatpants; Junhee screeches at the ball point’s slicing itch across the crease of his hip. Donghun takes pity and instead writes his name on the birthmark on Junhee’s belly.

Byeongkwan, with heroic confidence in the strength of his left hand grip, pulls off one of Junhee’s shoes and holds his ankle to sign the sole of his bare foot. At the same time, Yuchan makes a mark on Junhee’s palm—thinks better of it, rubs it away with his thumb while Junhee’s fingers curl—and carves a tidy K-Y-C into Junhee’s collarbone, making sure every stroke tickles and digs.

“All done,” says Yuchan with proud, clinical finality. He snaps the cap back onto his pen with the heel of his hand. Byeongkwan stares at him.

Junhee gives an enthusiastic groan and pulls himself to sitting, arm swinging out for his discarded clothes. He touches their signatures on his clammy skin with that dainty fresh-makeup-dabbing motion and scrambles away from them. His body obeys him no matter how breathless he is, no matter how much his pelvis might feel like jelly—except for his hands, which don’t need to be steady for dancing and shake easily. He can only sort of claw his sweatshirt along the floor with him. Before he leans against the mirror and his bare shoulders leave warm clouds against the glass, they can see green-tinged bruises and angry cuts patterning the reflection of his back.

He wipes his nose again and laughs. He looks at each one of them wryly. He toys with the lock charm dangling from his bracelet.

“So,” he says. “That’s that.”

Sweat dislodges a blue-black drop of ink from his chest, a thin trail down his crumpled stomach. Yuchan brings him water. Byeongkwan crouches next to him to push his hair back from his forehead, but Junhee waves him away. Byeongkwan sits beside Yuchan, notices he’s peeling the heat-pressed logo off his sleeve, and holds his hand.

“You deserve it,” says Donghun, softly tapping Junhee’s toes with his fingers.

Junhee sticks his tongue out.

“Oh, I try.”

***

Donghun catches Yuchan at the practice room door, under cover of the others’ backpack zipper sounds and clanging lockers and Junhee’s deep booming “You worked hard!” into the empty halls. He masks his words behind a smile, barely moving his lips, as if too shy to ask aloud. But he’s not shy. He fiddles with the lopsided string of Yuchan’s hoodie until part of the hood scrunches awkwardly around his ear.

“Yuchan-ah, I asked for you back. You’ll come back to me, right? Once you’ve rested a little?”

Yuchan’s mouth falls open for a moment. He glances at his toes, slightly rosy, only to plant his feet confidently outside Donghun’s and close the space between them. Donghun bends his spine to keep Yuchan’s face in his line of sight. When Yuchan looks at him, his eyelids are heavy, that now-familiar affected sultriness that makes Donghun seasick. Donghun can see him refusing to be flustered. He mirrors Donghun’s delicate mumble. His hands move firmly along Donghun’s wrists.

“Hyung, what are you saying? I’m right here, with you. I don’t need to rest.”

Donghun turns his eyebrows up at Yuchan. He leans in to whisper, targeting the fine hairs behind Yuchan’s ear.

“Then will you play with me, too?”

Yuchan pushes Donghun’s hands down to his sides. He braves a direct look into Donghun’s face and manages to hold his gaze. Donghun shivers at the calm in his voice.

“As soon as there’s time,” he whispers back. “I want…that…a lot. There’s a lot I can show you.” That’s as much as he can stand of his own voice before he has to nod eagerly and burst into a grin. Donghun doesn’t let him off. He maintains the narrow space between their faces when Yuchan falters.

“Do you promise?”

Yuchan’s composure is as precarious as scored glass.

“Do I have to? Don’t you trust me?”

“Yes,” says Donghun. He’s finally able to pull free from Yuchan’s grip, but as soon as the warmth of Yuchan’s skin fades from his palms, Donghun misses it—he slides his hands back into Yuchan’s not seconds later. “You have to promise.”

Yuchan tongues his lip; the corner of his mouth twitches; the crack in his composure miraculously heals.

“Okay, then. Whatever you say. I promise.”

Junhee and Byeongkwan have begun to shoot them glances from down the hall. Junhee raises his voice and waves.

“Car’s here, you two! Let’s go!”

Donghun snakes his arm over Yuchan’s shoulder and makes Yuchan half-drag him, like a drunk soldier, to the parking lot.


	9. see how i resemble you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junhee is hard to put up with when he’s on a rest. Yuchan asks him how all this started.

The awards show day is a blur. They’re up early again, they do everything they normally do on stage days—makeup, nerves, adrenaline, the shocking calm and ease of moving up there under the lights, the silly, weak feeling after. Junhee’s voice catches a little when he holds the resin cylinder that designates them “Next Artist.” He’s insensible to the sweep of his black hair over his forehead, the straight bolts of his eyebrows, the fine glitter snowing down into his lashes, how he looks in red. They know he’s not thinking about his face or his bruises or how sweat is bleeding their inked names into his clothes, but about going to eat beef.

The next day, they sleep until the afternoon. They let Junhee use his phone for two things before they take it away: monitoring the Soribada stage and ordering delivery. When those are done, Byeongkwan lifts Junhee’s phone out of his hands and Junhee’s fingers curl without resistance, his wrists fall into his lap. He leans his head on the back of the couch and Sehyoon grips his shoulder from behind, _better?_ Junhee nods sluggishly.

For the rest of the evening, if he gets up, he moves around with that thin pretense of apologetic politeness, _sorry for causing trouble, I’ll behave._ When the bossam arrives they demolish it together, Yuchan and Byeongkwan curled up using the arm of the couch as a table, Sehyoon squatting on the kitchen floor and Donghun splay-legged in the doorway. The five of them watch a movie for the first time in a long while. It’s a good movie. Donghun and Yuchan sniffle at the ending. They all sleep well again after being up for only seven hours, so well that Sehyoon is childishly happy through the next morning and materializes here and there to kiss them on their heads when they least expect it.

The sweetness is short-lived. They’re barely less busy, but Junhee has already recovered the energy he needed to start his work of wearing them down.

At first they can avoid him. Byeongkwan has a schedule, Donghun goes to visit his brother, the weather is nice so Sehyoon and Yuchan take a long walk together, enjoying the sun and looking at dogs. But then they have to work, in an environment where the full-voiced singing doesn’t stop, the clothes do not go on, the hot water is always used up, snack wrappers are showered with celebratory abandon across the floor, and nature sounds—loud tinny crickets, staticky surf, garbled waterfalls—ambush them around every corner. A lot of whining, a lot of biting, a lot of hovering in the ticklish spots beneath their ears like a bumblebee drawn to a flower on a dress. And they have to ignore it. Their only respites are the gym and the practice room, where Junhee somehow remembers how to be a damn professional.

They don’t all play this game the same way. Yuchan is mostly left alone, though Junhee has adopted Donghun’s habit of pretending to cry out in pain when Yuchan so much as brushes past, flustering him. Sehyoon tries to clown his way out of close calls, feigning robotic innocence when Junhee hangs around him with hopeful eyes. Donghun, on the other hand, wears half-open leather jackets on his bare chest around the dorm just so Junhee can moan at the sight of him doing the dishes.

Junhee gets the better of Donghun first, early one day in the living room, when picking at a first meal of spicy ramyeon. He starts with the bowl gripped between his knees, but when Donghun walks in, he balances it on the very edge of the arm of the couch. When Donghun raises his eyebrows, Junhee stares at him. Then, smirking, he extends two fingers slowly toward the lip of the bowl. Before Donghun can shout a warning at him, Junhee gives a sharp shove. Soup goes flying in a burnt-orange bloodbath.

Donghun roars, half-enraged, half-thrilled—he yanks Junhee effortlessly off the couch and slams him against the back of it, hand locked on Junhee’s head, growling into his neck.

“This is how you’re gonna be? This is what you want? You want to get fucked silly, would you calm the fuck down then? Or should I just—”

Junhee gasps _yes_ shamelessly to whatever Donghun threatens, whimpers with laughter when he feels Donghun getting hard at the back of his thigh, groans happily when Donghun’s hand snakes up and squeezes his throat, when Donghun smiles into his hair.

“Hyung!”

Byeongkwan’s cross-armed shout from the doorway stops them. Donghun releases Junhee and lets him slide panting down the back of the couch before stepping over him to get towels from the drying rack. Junhee’s guilty laughter makes his eyes water. Byeongkwan surveys the brothy blast zone with a determinedly straight face.

Donghun throws a dish rag down in Junhee’s lap but kneels and begins using a second one to mop up the mess himself. He rights the bowl and strings noodles back into it, wrings dirty broth from the rag. Junhee kneads his cloth between his fingertips as his uncontrollable giggles gradually lapse into mortified tears. Donghun winces and reaches for his hand.

“Wait, no, don’t cry. God, you’re embarrassing.” He didn’t mean to induce horny crying. He frowns at Byeongkwan.

“I have to kiss him,” he says softly, sheepishly.

Byeongkwan masks an eye-roll with a fluttery blink.

“Once,” he says. He moves over behind Junhee and crouches, folding Junhee’s hands behind his back and pointing him toward Donghun. Junhee clenches his fists, red-faced. Donghun leans in—first, he pretends to go for Byeongkwan’s lips over Junhee’s shoulder, laughing when they both let out indignant shouts—then gives Junhee a single consolatory kiss.

Junhee tries to open his mouth, to sneak out his tongue in a slime of spit and salty tears. His hips rise up toward Donghun; Byeongkwan slides his hand down Junhee’s belly, covers his dick with his hand, and pulls him to heel. Junhee whines pitifully then laughs at himself. Donghun’s cheeks break out pink. He can’t help throwing Byeongkwan an offended look, even though he knows the rules, even though Junhee would be too much for him right now anyway.

In the next few days, Junhee is erratic. He tries to be good, or says he’s trying, but things come up. One evening, Donghun is allowed to bring the car around and he catches Junhee attached to a cluster of staff members on a smoke break, well out of the way of public paths and business property but still dimly visible beyond the parking lot pillars. Junhee’s small frame, too-short peg pants, and ankle boots don’t look out of place between an intern’s sneakers and an admin’s sensible pumps—but even with a hat pulled low over his face his shrill giggle gives him away. He’s chugging on a lit cigarette that he holds like a piece of chalk, chatting breathlessly, forgetting to inhale normal air. After Donghun hauls him off to the car amid the staff’s covert laughter, Junhee gets dizzy in the passenger’s seat. Donghun just glowers and flicks him in the forehead and pretends not to find it cute.

After receiving complaints, Byeongkwan tightens his grip. When the five of them play games on Vlive, Byeongkwan positions himself firmly between Junhee and the others, excluding him from everyone else’s touch while they pile together like cubs. When they’re out of town, Byeongkwan and Junhee room together. Byeongkwan can’t help showing Junhee off—they go live again, wrapped around one another, and even though the members all but begged Byeongkwan to keep Junhee away from them there are one or two envious twinges when they see it.

***

Another night, when they’re back home, Byeongkwan and Sehyoon have disappeared somewhere. They do that sometimes, like a magic trick. The others aren’t convinced those two don’t have some kind of other dimension they can slip away to for hours, undetected and alone, probably walking through strange woods where Sehyoon knows the names of all the plants and Byeongkwan owes all the spirits money. But in their absence, Donghun is asleep. Yuchan peeks in on Junhee through the crack in the bedroom door and finds him by himself, lying on his stomach on the bottom bunk. A pulsing EDM beat from Junhee’s earphones and a strawberry cream smell from a half-drunk milkshake hang in the air.

Yuchan slips up behind him. Junhee barely has time to notice Yuchan’s doubled shadow crossing the mattress before Yuchan puts both hands out and squeezes his waist, undecided between gentle and mean.

Junhee flips over in a wild recoiling motion like an eel. He grins as if in pain, eyes pressed shut, rips out his earphones. Yuchan tries to laugh quietly and cautiously gets on his knees on the mattress. Junhee’s legs bend a little when Yuchan draws close to him. Yuchan reaches out and grips Junhee’s thighs tightly, trying to tell him something, trying to steady him, maybe, or hold him down. His eyes are huge. Junhee looks at him then.

“Kang Yuchan?”

Yuchan lowers his head toward the inside of Junhee’s knee and just barely kisses him there, just brushing his mouth against his skin. No pressure, no movement. Face burning, jaw forward. Junhee’s knee twitches, but his body stays relaxed.

“Hyung, you won’t tell—but if it helps, I mean—”

Junhee bites his lower lip hard, realizing what Yuchan is offering him. He squirms, embarrassed as his spine stutters and his dick firms visibly, vulnerably, right under Yuchan’s chin. Yuchan suddenly has that purposeful killer look, eyes icy, mouth half open. He attaches to the inside of Junhee’s upper thigh. Junhee gasps, gives a strangled squeal, his other knee knocking Yuchan’s shoulder as the sensation tugs deep. Junhee’s stomach clenches and unclenches, shaking his body on the bed, he fists his hand in Yuchan’s hair.

_“Hey.”_

Pressure now, pain as teeth scrape and blood vessels break.

“_Hey_, I—_ah_—” Yuchan’s mouth lets go. Junhee falls back, body arcing a little while red strawberry spots remember the O of Yuchan’s lips against his skin. He grins fiercely again, he covers his face in his elbow. Yuchan leans back and watches him. Junhee recovers and scoots away, sits up. He looks at Yuchan, a vein standing out on his forehead, and half-giddily, half-sadly takes Yuchan’s hand.

“It’s okay,” he says, with some effort. “Let’s not get you in trouble. You don’t have to do that. Just keep me company, okay?”

Yuchan looks at his toes. Junhee passes him an earbud and the straw of his milkshake.

Eventually, when several songs have played, the milkshake has been drained, and the flushes have faded from their cheeks, Yuchan gnaws a callus on his thumb and looks at Junhee.

“Hyung-ah. What do you like about it? Getting hit and humiliated and…?”

“Um…” Junhee tries to drink through the straw but gets an empty rattle. “I don’t know. Well—maybe you’re like me, actually, but I always feel like I have a lot of energy. Even when I’m tired it’s too much. Like my skin isn’t the right size, like I’m always trying to get out of it. Pain, being pinned down, feeling ashamed—hm—fixes things? Puts me back inside myself? Or lets something out that otherwise…I don’t really know.”

Another uncomfortable, unsuccessful slurp of strawberry-scented air, then Junhee smiles.

“I mean, what do you like about—what’s the main thing? Blood?”

Yuchan shrinks a little.

“Uh! I don’t know either, I only just started to…well, that’s not true, if I look back on it, maybe, but…it’s…”

Yuchan’s voice gets high and insistent—he’s squinting like when he’s trying to win an argument. Junhee has to squeeze his ankle to remind him to speak at a normal volume. He lets out a breath.

“It’s pretty? But also it’s like…it’s a big deal? The biggest deal? And getting it is just as…It’s kind of like…okay, don’t laugh…it’s like if your whole body was your dick, then blood would be like the—”

Junhee stifles a scream, teeth bared, in Yuchan’s hoodied shoulder. Yuchan punches Junhee on the arm until he falls away, laughing too hard to register the pain.

“Oh, shut up.”

“Sorry. It was when you said ‘if your whole body was your dick’...”

Yuchan buries his face in his hands, hiding his own smile. Junhee sobers up apologetically.

After a while, Yuchan looks sidelong at Junhee again.

“But…how did you even get into this stuff?”

“Ah…You really want to hear it?”

“Hyung, I’m asking.”

“Oh…” Junhee sighs again. “How to tell this story quickly, I’m sleepy...”

Yuchan rolls his eyes.

“You want to tell me.”

“I do.”

Junhee looks Yuchan over with something like gentle concern.

“Well, for those feelings,” he starts, “you can probably guess I started to notice it when I was young? Mostly at school, classmates and teachers making fun of me for, well—some things that came naturally, like crying or biting or kissing boy friends on the cheek—but some things I did on purpose, for attention. Not following the rules in sports, wearing my sisters’ barrettes in my hair—it doesn’t matter. I just learned quickly that I liked it, liked it innocently at first, then later—I’m sorry, that’s not important—”

“No, it’s—” Yuchan is hushed, contemplating. Maybe that sound he makes is one of recognition.

“And then later I realized I liked boys. For a while, I actually thought I was acting gay just to get a rise out of people, it was almost funny—when people teased me for liking boys I liked boys harder. That was real trouble, more than I realized. But still, I had this one friend. He was much braver than me. Once he made a plot so we could bus for two hours to Gwangju and sneak into what must have been the one gay bar anywhere, fake IDs and everything, and that—well, that’s a totally different story, but the point is I wanted to find places like that when I came to Seoul. It was easier then, I was older and could go about freely. I found those places, I made new friends, I learned a lot about different kinds of arrangements people could have. Things I’d never heard of, but that interested me… And then I met someone.”

Yuchan hisses softly, remembering Byeongkwan’s _Junhee-hyung learned from strangers._

“He was…how should I say this part? He was a bit older than me, big and rough. Motorcycle, boots, sexy. He made me _his_. I wasn’t the only one, but he made me feel like I was. He’d dress me up in his leather and take me out with his hand on the back of my neck. He protected me. He sent me off to flirt with other boys and pulled me back harshly. And when we were alone, he showed me things I’d never…ah, I was so happy.”

“Oh,” says Yuchan, fear and pity making his voice thin. “Oh, hyung, oh no—”

“No,” says Junhee. “No, it wasn’t like that. I loved him.”

Yuchan winces.

“But it went bad, didn’t it. You got hurt.”

“I got—carried away, I think, is the best way to put it?” Junhee says. “Remember, I was also auditioning during that time. I was running around the city like crazy, sleeping on his floor some nights. And before I knew it I passed an audition and started training, but I—couldn’t let him go. So I tried to undergo both kinds of training at once. My body…when you’re that young, you know well, the things your body can withstand, but even then…I was sore all the time, my throat was bad, I just scraped by in evaluations.”

Yuchan raises his eyebrows.

“You?”

Junhee smirks at the flattery.

“It was really a lot. I spent so much time with him when I wasn’t at the company. Physically, it was intense, but other than that…he started forgetting about me. And being young and silly and obsessed, that’s what really made me sick, in the end. And then, some other bad things happened, I couldn’t take it. Eventually they sent me home.”

“Jesus. Junhee.”

“I don’t want you to think…I was never manipulated, I mean. When I realized I’d had enough, it was easy to leave him. You know I can be stubborn, too.”

“You can.”

“It was just that he couldn’t take care of me well. He taught me a lot, but not enough. I had a lot of misunderstandings, I think…Eventually my head cleared, and I left. I had other people, here and there, some of them were good, but I didn’t really live that way again until…Until I met Byeongkwan, actually.”

Yuchan gives a strained laugh, struggling to keep up with Junhee, still stuck on the first story.

“Oh, my god, yes. Byeongkwan. I forgot to even ask when that started.”

“We were still trainees. You remember, you were around by then. It was when we were all fighting a lot. It was my fault, I was the worst of everyone, I was a mess—Byeongkwan was the only one brave enough to do something about me. And when he came to me to scold me, he was quaking in his shoes, seriously, but he was so—wow. It happened naturally. I started needing him to scold me regularly.”

Yuchan holds back a blush.

“Just tell me that has a happier ending than the first guy.”

“Sure,” says Junhee. “It was the beginning that was worse. I’m like this, when I was young I always broke my toys, getting too excited, playing too hard. When I’m the toy—” he grins “—the same thing can happen. I get excited. It’s easy to break. It was Sehyoon who saved me that time. He made sure Byeongkwan learned how to take care of me, too. And he did. He really, really did.”

Yuchan lets out a long, slow breath. His fist is tight on his knee.

“Oh no, I…was that too much? Yuchan-ah, I’m sorry.”

“Is that—” A squeeze in Yuchan’s stomach shuts his voice off for a moment. His nose wrinkles painfully. “Is that what happened when you found out about me?”

“Sorry?”

“You got carried away? You let me really hurt you?”

Junhee looks hard at Yuchan, face suddenly stony. He turns Yuchan toward him by the shoulder.

“No.”

“But—”

“_No._ Yuchan. Listen to me. We’ll always be safe for each other. That’s the whole point of all of this. You can’t hurt me, and I’ll never let you get hurt either, you understand? Never.”

“But you—your—”

Junhee laces his fingers in with Yuchan’s and presses his hand.

“Oh. Don’t cry.”

“Then you don’t,” snaps Yuchan, crying. “Fuck.”

Junhee puts his head on Yuchan’s shoulder and laughs.

“I love you a lot, Yuchan.”


	10. night where you can't sleep 0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They can’t actually tease Junhee with a remote control vibrator while he’s doing a voice live, but they can pretend to.

_Junhee-oppa_, Donghun types, biting his fist as if he can punch his laugh back down his throat. _Neomu saranghae_. The bright teal message from BeatInt-Test-03 hops up on the screen and sweeps away BeatInt-Test-01’s _aegyo please_, BeatInt-Test-02’s wOw sticker spam.

Junhee clamps his pillowcase between his teeth, frees it, wipes spit from the corner of his mouth with a twitching hand, and murmurs over his knuckle to his phone, “Thank you. I love you too.”

It’s been ten minutes already. Junhee hasn’t been _good_, exactly, but something needed to be done about him.

They’re only pretending, using the private test channel—Junhee’s voice broadcasts only to their earphones in a thin echo, and they don’t need to listen when they can watch him—but it’s almost too easy to imagine a vast, unsuspecting audience tuned in to the tiny arena they’ve formed with Junhee at its center, hunched and shaking on the bottom bunk. The horrorstruck hilarity they feel when Junhee’s voice weakens, when his face crumples and it looks like he’s about to moan, is real enough to choke them.

Yuchan leans against the closet door, farthest from Junhee, and looks on with a faint frown of concentration. Donghun nestles against him, feeling Yuchan’s warm breath down his neck, slotting his hip between Yuchan’s legs and letting Yuchan curl all four limbs around him. Sehyoon lies on his side on the single bed across from the bunk and lazily taps out hearts and stickers on his phone. Tucked under Sehyoon’s free arm, Byeongkwan types into the chat with one hand. With the other, he manipulates a small pink silicone remote.

“Today’s TMI? Today’s TMI…” Junhee looks up into the corners of the ceiling, sitting back on his heels and rocking slightly, as if wriggling could bring relief from the soft throbs of the vibrator in his underwear. His neck flushes red; sweat makes his pajamas cling thinly to his back.

“I walked out to the corner store today and bought things for the members. Lee Donghun wanted BB cream. You might not know this about him, but he wears a lot, even to practice, even to bed—”

BeatInt-Test-03 _too far  
_BeatInt-Test-03 _ah  
_BeatInt-Test-03 _this won’t do  
_BeatInt-Test-04 _really???? O.o i’m a girl and even i don’t wear to bed…  
_BeatInt-Test-01 _I’m a boy and I do  
_BeatInt-Test-04 _sure  
_BeatInt-Test-03_ junhee-ya you’ve started lying  
_BeatInt-Test-01 _don’t be close minded  
_BeatInt-Test-03 _lee donghun skincare god  
_BeatInt-Test-03 _lee donghun bare faced king  
_BeatInt-Test-02 wOw  
BeatInt-Test-02 wOw  
BeatInt-Test-01_ dongjun get married  
_BeatInt-Test-01 _junhee kiss donghun, make up  
_BeatInt-Test-03 _park junhee has wrinkles  
_BeatInt-Test-02 wOw  
BeatInt-Test-03 _oppa bought bb cream for himself and lied about it_

Junhee is vivid with suppressed laughter. Tears swell in the corners of his eyes, but his voice stays level and clear. His curled toes knot the sheets; he swallows.

“You’re right, maybe I’m lying a little bit. The truth is, out of all of us, I think Donghun-hyung has nice skin. We’re not shy, you see our bare faces often, right? Thank you for loving us a lot even without makeup…”

BeatInt-Test-01 _sentimental  
_BeatInt-Test-01_ feel nauseous  
_BeatInt-Test-04 <3333  
BeatInt-Test-04_ love you no matter what  
_BeatInt-Test-03 _park junhee should wear makeup  
_BeatInt-Test-03 _better with makeup  
_BeatInt-Test-02 wOw  
BeatInt-Test-04 Lo<3e  
BeatInt-Test-03 Lo<3e  
BeatInt-Test-03 _joke joke  
_BeatInt-Test-03 _park junhee prettiest  
_BeatInt-Test-02 wOw  
BeatInt-Test-03 _no  
_BeatInt-Test-03 _jUn  
_BeatInt-Test-02 wOw  
BeatInt-Test-02 wOw  
BeatInt-Test-01 wOw  
BeatInt-Test-02 wOw  
BeatInt-Test-02 wOw

Junhee laughs, first softly at the blue “wOw” stickers flooding his screen, then in a giggle he can’t quite manage, like hiccups, little stammering notes that shake his shoulders and force him to press a hand over his mouth. Byeongkwan thumbs a button. These are the rules—they can’t break character in the chat, and if Junhee laughs or moans he feels it. They can hear the hum getting louder, the pattern changing, making it harder for Junhee to anticipate the waves. His back arches; he reaches behind his head and clutches the frame of the upper bunk. The lock bracelet jangles out from under his sleeve. His eyes shake dizzily for a moment as he brings the phone screen closer to his face. He tongues sweat from his cheek and grins.

BeatInt-Test-02 wOw  
BeatInt-Test-01 _say something  
_BeatInt-Test-04 _tell us what you ate today  
_BeatInt-Test-01 _hyung let’s get married  
_BeatInt-Test-03 _oppa i’ll cook for you_

Junhee clears his throat. He tries to breathe through the involuntary squeezing that makes his stomach flare with every pulse, but he just talks instead—sucking air in between words is easier. He still sounds miraculously calm, though a tightness in his voice makes Byeongkwan squirm where he lies.

“What I ate today? Ramyeon, our ram-juk, something Kang Yuchan makes for us a lot. He adds lots of scallions. Scallion master. With egg, always, of course, and pork neck. Married? This…Don’t make me say no again, you know I can’t because of work. When I break all my bones and can’t be an idol anymore we can get married. Yes, I’ll try your cooking, yum…”

He keeps talking, still bracing himself against the top bunk, still bobbing on his heels. He chatters faster the more he runs out of breath. His words slur together slightly. His dick prods out under his pajama pants, a tiny wet dot starting in the fabric, and Donghun snaps his fingers at him like a misbehaving dog; he pulls the pillow over his lap in shame.

The subject is still food. He’s just listing the kinds of barbecue he knows until a sudden throb silences him completely. He folds forward and digs his fingers into the mattress, tongue pressed hard against his teeth in a fierce struggle not to squeal.

“Oh,” he says sadly. Through the broadcast he sounds almost cold, or sick, the way he hisses when he breathes—but they can see him, shimmering and red, see how sweat and tears have made him soggy, his nose running into his mouth. He keeps wiping his face in his sleeve and resting his forehead there too long, tendons standing out pale on his neck, his fingertips gone white around his phone case. “I’m being boring. I’d better play music, right?”

BeatInt-Test-04 _junhee-oppa aren’t you feeling good?  
_BeatInt-Test-04 _are you sleepy?  
_BeatInt-Test-01 _don’t play music, sing instead  
_BeatInt-Test-03 _don’t sing  
_BeatInt-Test-04 _you’ll keep playing with us right?_

“Yes, I’m feeling good. I’m not tired. My—hm—I won’t be able to sing, sorry. What songs do you guys want to hear?”

Junhee furrows his forehead and tries to catch someone’s eye to beg for mercy, but they ignore him. Without looking up from his phone, still spamming hearts and wOw stickers in the chat, Sehyoon slides his hand down into Byeongkwan’s sweatpants. Yuchan buries his face in Donghun’s shoulder, shy about his dick getting hard against Donghun’s tailbone. Donghun reaches back to grab Yuchan’s ass and Yuchan gnaws at him. All of them feel too warm in the crowded room, smelling Junhee’s sweat, listening to his voice breaking.

Junhee babbles while he flips through playlists. His voice gets higher as he fails to connect a bluetooth speaker, as his shaking thumb hits ‘play’ on random Skrillex vintages he struggles to turn off. He apologizes to the imaginary audience. Donghun’s stomach hurts with swallowed laughter, with the ache he feels at the awkward, horny brush of Yuchan’s skin against his own, Yuchan’s cheek squished burning against his back.

Byeongkwan doesn’t moan, just stretches his head on his neck a little and blinks lazily. Only a shimmer on his forehead and the soft jostle of Sehyoon’s arm against his belly give him away. He grinds back on Sehyoon and keeps working the remote with focus. He changes the rhythm again, from the swelling waves to an aggressive, even beat. Junhee’s phone almost jumps out of his hand. He manages to put on music, but he chokes. His free arm no longer supports him but squeezes the pillow tightly to his lap. He shifts on his hips, trying to squirm into a less vulnerable position, but ends up rocking gently back and forth. His tongue curls out; his eyebrow jumps; he just barely remembers to read their comments.

BeatInt-Test-02 _jjuni-ya-a  
_BeatInt-Test-02 _what fancams make you hard_

Donghun snorts. Byeongkwan elbows Sehyoon; Sehyoon grins with a soft complaining sound and does something that makes Byeongkwan groan into his wrist.

“Report…comment…”

Sehyoon throws his head back laughing.

BeatInt-Test-04 _CL menboong  
_BeatInt-Test-03 _donghun make it nasty  
_BeatInt-Test-04 _kim wow My House  
_BeatInt-Test-04 _black blue black wooh_

“Stop it…” Sehyoon shoots Yuchan a half-embarrassed smile; Yuchan blushes back at Sehyoon and squawks with laughter while Donghun nudges him.

“Don’t answer him,” Byeongkwan hisses, annoyed but fading a little against Sehyoon’s chest. “Does no one listen to me—”

Junhee clears his throat. He looks steadier suddenly, though his neck is still flushed, though his phone still shakes badly in his hand. He rolls his hips against the pillow and finds a space to silently gasp between the shocks that tighten his spine.

“Favorite fancams? Baekhyun sunbaenim—had a stage I think about a lot—”

Byeongkwan tries give Junhee a reproachful wave, but has to hang his head and let his hand fall on the mattress as Sehyoon’s breathing roughens in his ear. Yuchan tenses behind Donghun; Donghun pulls Yuchan’s arm over his chest and Yuchan digs his fingers into Donghun’s breastbone painfully.

“The Sacrifice—” Junhee continues. “A couple years ago. He did—hmm—a seriously cool performance—wow, when I think about that—”

He’s looking directly at Byeongkwan, smiling with his tongue. Byeongkwan clamps his mouth shut and hides behind a clenched fist—he jiggles his leg a little as he tries to manage—but he makes a noise through his nose as he remembers the video Junhee’s talking about. Sehyoon turns his head to hide his face in the shadow of Byeongkwan’s back. It’s hard to tell if he’s laughing at Junhee or stifling a moan. Donghun feels Yuchan squirming behind him, hears Yuchan’s mouth open with a faintly panicked sound; Yuchan’s lips bump against the back of Donghun’s neck and Donghun leans even harder into him. Junhee’s still trying to play, but the pauses between his words are getting long.

“When I first saw that, we hadn’t debuted yet. There was—a part I watched over and over—at the end—he falls on his knees, like—” His own harsh exhale interrupts him. He buckles forward again and holds still except to stretch his neck, fist painful in the sheets, “Hmm, hah, hang on—”

He’s about to lose. Byeongkwan’s eyes star shut for the briefest moment. Sehyoon half-rolls over onto him with a breathless laugh, making him gasp and giggle and even whine a little, almost forfeiting too. Junhee glances at them tangled up together and puts a hand over his face. Yuchan’s chin driving unbearably into his shoulder, bottom lip hooked under his tooth, Donghun picks his phone back up with a grin.

BeatInt-Test-03 _stupid  
_BeatInt-Test-03 _don’t cum_

Junhee’s single, defeated cry is irredeemable. He tries to get one more word out to finish his sentence, but he fails. He puts the pillow between his teeth and folds onto his side, toward the wall, spasming, heaving. At first the only thing visible is his spine flexing, his heart pounding through his shoulder blades, but then he rolls onto his back and they can see him coming—neck lifting from the mattress, eyes open wide and blank, cock twitching pathetically. A translucent wet patch seeps through the front of his pajama pants and he hides himself with the pillow again. Humiliated tears stream down his face into his ears, his hair—his knuckles rest shakily on his forehead, he blinks hard, keeps grinning and crying. When he’s able to pull himself up to his elbow and grab his phone again, he doesn’t bother to pretend to say goodbye—he shuts it off completely, throws it across the bed, and falls back with a gleefully mortified scream.

They cheer for him. Yuchan groans in Donghun’s ear before breaking into deafening laugher. Donghun can’t stand it anymore—he grabs Yuchan’s hand and wraps it around his waist, pulls it farther down until Yuchan can reach down Donghun’s pants, stretching out his fingers boldly; Donghun bends his knee and throws all of his weight back onto Yuchan. Sehyoon looks up happily, still draped over Byeongkwan on all fours, tongue slightly out; Byeongkwan wriggles from under him enough to bring his hands together in gentle applause.

Junhee convulses again and shrieks, digs the heels of his hands into his eyelids, breathes through labored giggles.

“Can you turn it off?”

Byeongkwan covers his mouth. He turns the vibrator off and Junhee collapses with his arms dangling off the side of the bed.

“Sorry.”

Junhee turns his face back and forth across the mattress and makes exaggerated sobbing sounds.

“Junhee-ya,” calls Sehyoon. “You did so well!”

Junhee rolls back over, belly up, quieting down. He looks drained and delighted and peaceful; his chest rises and falls, his tears slip down quietly, his expression soft instead of beaming.

Donghun frees himself and crawls toward the bed, Yuchan close behind him. He pats Junhee’s shoulders roughly, shaking him.

“You’re so good at that,” he chuckles. “Or you were at first.”

Junhee’s smile twitches a little, but he’s too dazed now to grin like before. His eyes cast around sluggishly before he finds Donghun’s face.

Yuchan helps Donghun grab hold of Junhee and pull him from the bottom bunk onto the carpet.

“Ah, careful with him,” says Byeongkwan, getting winded as Sehyoon drags himself back down against him and kisses his shoulder.

“Yessir,” says Yuchan. He lies on top of Junhee and Junhee kicks his legs halfheartedly, tickled, giggling without the strength to make a sound. First, Donghun holds down Junhee’s feet, but when Junhee gasps uncomfortably at Yuchan’s weight on his ribs he crawls up and pulls Yuchan off him. The three of them lie together on the floor. Yuchan’s arm thrown over Junhee, Donghun’s hand wrapped around Yuchan’s hip, all a little giddy, a little ragged.

They hear Sehyoon and Byeongkwan forgetting about them on the bed. Junhee’s show is over; he might go to sleep, might get up and shower and change, might try to find something to eat.

Donghun pulls Yuchan toward him. Yuchan pushes backward into Donghun, reaches for Donghun’s hand and moves it down his stomach. He’s hot and wired and wide awake.


	11. to me, to you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuchan shows Donghun what he’s been working on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for needles (play piercing, not graphic)

With Donghun at the door, with Donghun reaching breathlessly after him, Yuchan sprints across the room and throws himself onto the head of the bed. He watches Donghun brightly from the dark corner, one foot curled up to his body, leaning close to the window where the rain sends gory black smoke drops through the yellow-green cast of the streetlight. One foot extending toward the ground, waiting for Donghun to chase him there, to run into his trap.

Donghun doesn’t. He just closes the door calmly behind him. He’s not afraid. He’s not aware he should be. Yuchan is gangly, shadowy, his wrist bent back in an awkward, delicate angle while his big toe swings circles on the fake wood of the floor. He looks over with a goofy grin that’s more chin and adam’s apple than teeth and crescent eyes. Watery light pierces the thinnest part of his ear, just barely, from behind.

Donghun doesn’t know what he’s actually looking at when Yuchan smiles like that. He only feels the door clicking shut and, like a circuit closing, the glowing ring of alone-with-ness forming around the two of them. He only feels Yuchan being his again.

That feeling keeps him there, motionless by the door, unable to control the warmth or the shape of his face—but he also knows that if he holds his position long enough, Yuchan’s mind will wander. He wants to see that moment, to see himself go out of focus in Yuchan’s shining eyes.

It comes quickly. Yuchan’s smile slips, his lips part vaguely, his eyelids slide down but not enough to hide his sidelong glance toward something at the foot of the bed. Donghun will see what it is later. He needs to take the opening.

He darts close to Yuchan faster than Yuchan can catch him. He leans into Yuchan with one hand on the mattress, one hand at the spot under Yuchan’s knee that draws a ticklish gasp. Donghun is surprised by how much louder the rain roars here by the window—in his other ear Yuchan’s breath rumbles too, punctuated with the small sticky sound of Yuchan moving his tongue to the other side of his mouth.

“Ah—” says Yuchan as Donghun finally, decisively, brings him back into his body.

Donghun kisses him under the ear. Yuchan jerks his knee up and pushes it into the softest part of Donghun’s stomach until Donghun rises off him, staggering back to his feet, laughter already blurring his eyes. Donghun feels Yuchan grab both of his wrists before he can rock too far backward. He blinks, and his vision clears—as much as it can in the dark, rain-rippled room—and Yuchan isn’t laughing.

Donghun’s instinct is to tear away, even to whine _don’t grab me like that._ He wants his hands free so he can touch Yuchan and make him giggle and turn red-faced and hot, but Yuchan looks so serious suddenly. He hasn’t put on the mask of meanness yet—it’s something else. Something Yuchan wants to tell him, something _don’t-make-me-say-it_ about the twitch of his enormous, searching eyes back and forth across Donghun’s face.

God, Donghun wishes he were better at this.

“Okay,” he says. He tries to make his voice sweet and soothing, but it’s total guesswork. “Okay, I won’t laugh, then. You’re beautiful. Whatever you want, I won’t laugh. I promise.”

Yuchan’s eyebrows hop up into his hair as he ducks his head forward in a grin. He lets go of Donghun’s wrists.

“What,” snaps Donghun, choosing annoyance over embarrassment. “Was that not it?”

Yuchan’s face goes impassive with a sweet, placating expression that Donghun does know how to read, because he sees it every stupid day. It’s his managing-difficult-hyungs face. Donghun lets it work on him, _just this once_, just like he always does.

Yuchan reaches out and puts his hand on the back of Donghun’s neck—so cautiously, holding his breath, as if Donghun were trapped in a net and Yuchan had to brave the risk of hurting him to free him. His palm is smooth and warm before his short, jagged fingernails dig in and he pulls hard.

Donghun stumbles forward, catching himself with his elbows on the bed. His head thuds against Yuchan’s chest and noises swallow him like he’s fallen into rushing water—the rain outside, Yuchan’s heartbeat, Yuchan’s harsh, deep breathing—something coming from inside him too, but that could be anything. Donghun pulls his knees onto the bed and scrambles to the surface, climbing up Yuchan’s body and knocking him over. Donghun turns his head to free his nose and mouth from Yuchan’s hoodie so he can catch his breath. There, lying on top of Yuchan like a life raft, Donghun hears Yuchan’s muffled laughter loud and clear again.

Yuchan hooks his leg outside Donghun’s hip and flips him over onto his back. When the dancing spots clear and Donghun sees Yuchan looming over him, hands on his wrists again, he contemplates being afraid—but he still can’t manage it. This close, with rain-washed light marbling Yuchan’s snub, beautifully honest face, Donghun can only look at him being pretty and love him and—

“Never mind,” murmurs Yuchan, still laughing. He lowers his mouth over Donghun’s throat in a way that tickles horribly, awakens every nerve on that side of his body. “Just kiss me. Then let me fuck you up a little.”

The words drop on Donghun’s skin and sink into him, mix in with his insides, swirl him up him into a gas. He just feels weightless. He has to go back on the offensive—but a soft groan has to clear out of his throat before he can speak, and Yuchan hears it, and his thighs press down painfully on Donghun’s thighs to make sure he knows it. Donghun stretches his neck, trying to lift his face to Yuchan to kiss him like he asked, but he can’t quite reach. He lets his head fall back.

“You’re—hm—only doing this for me because you can’t touch Junhee, aren’t you.”

Yuchan clucks his tongue, disappointed that Donghun would hurl accusations this early on, but Donghun can’t help it. He’s already so lost. He doesn’t have anything else. If Yuchan’s going to cut him up, he’s going to nurse his ego, too.

Donghun hears Yuchan sigh as he puts that together with almost boring ease. Then Yuchan smiles coolly and ducks close to Donghun’s face again. His hand follows Donghun’s pulse down his arm, coming to rest in the center of Donghun’s chest, close to where the weeks-old bite mark sheds the last of its brown scarring. He taps his forefinger thoughtfully, then drags it slowly, winsomely, up into the hollow of Donghun’s throat.

“Now, who says I can’t touch Junhee.”

“You couldn’t,” says Donghun, as if he doesn’t know both of them have broken the rules already. “It’s serious. Byeongkwan would kill you for real and make it look like an accident.”

Yuchan sits back.

“Hyung. I mean—ah—just let me show you.”

“Show me what?”

“Take off your clothes.”

By the time he remembers to look scandalized, Donghun’s already pulling his shirt over his head. He regrets not being more ornery—he’ll have to build up resistance to Yuchan’s blithe commands. He throws his jeans away. It’s cool in the room, rain-saturated air settles on his skin, he shivers. He wants to lean in to Yuchan’s body heat, but Yuchan rises from the bed. Donghun radiates reproach after him.

“I’m cold…”

Yuchan muffles a snort of laughter and switches on the space heater without batting an eye. His casual disregard offends Donghun some, turns him on some, makes him want Yuchan to come back over to him more. An orange glow warms them both as Yuchan turns on his desk lamp, too, casting the whole room in a dim, dormy yellow.

Yuchan crouches at the foot of the bed, where his eyes wandered earlier. Donghun can make out a striped boutique bag inside a plastic storage container, tucked next to some kind of garment in a stiff white material. Yuchan slides open the underbed drawer and retrieves a long carton, the kind commonly seen in restaurant kitchens housing a roll of paper or foil. He pulls out another cardboard box, white, printed with the artificial-flavor colors and curves of medical supplies. Donghun doesn’t recognize any of it.

“The others helped me get some things,” Yuchan says in a hopeful, explanatory tone. What’s he expecting Donghun to understand, exactly? “Some things for you. That you might like, I mean.”

“Oh?”

Donghun sees Yuchan steeling himself. Yuchan pops the lid off the plastic bin and fishes out the pale garment, bringing it to Donghun like a small ghost in his hands, laces dangling from it like ropes of seawater.

“Arms up—”

Again, Donghun’s body obeys Yuchan before he has a chance to be difficult. Is it because nothing Yuchan tells him to do feels like an order until it’s too late?

Yuchan slips the corset down over Donghun’s raised arms and cinches it snugly just under his breastbone. Donghun only realizes what it is when it closes around him. Yuchan hasn’t made it tight, only to fit, but Donghun’s torso squeezes on its own, a delighted thrill twisting him into a knot and forcing a small sound from his throat. He traces the material up his ribs with his fingertips. The exterior is soft, a kind of cream-colored faux leather, but the inside is coarse and stiff. He’s worn things like this before for photoshoots—even to a club once, ages ago—but never against his bare skin.

He whines again when Yuchan’s fingers wrap back into the laces, tugging them tighter here and there. He feels too pretty and romantic, transported to somewhere with the moon, somewhere candles burn from wax flowers. The sense of loveliness is overwhelming. He scrunches his face to try to be normal, to be himself, to see Yuchan in front of him again.

“See what I mean?” says Yuchan quietly. He alternates between sets of lacing as he tightens the corset even more, distributing force evenly like you’re supposed to do on the bolts of a changed tire.

“I’m not doing this because I can’t touch Jun. I’m doing this because I need it from you. I want it from you. No one else.”

_No one else_ nearly makes Donghun float up from the bed. At first he doesn’t realize he’s sinking back slightly, depending on Yuchan’s support to keep him upright. When he does, he plays it up, lets his eyelids sag, tries to look languid and damsely. He works his hand around Yuchan’s wrist and feels his heartbeat there.

“You can’t expect me to act how Junhee acts. You can’t make me be the way he is.”

Yuchan smiles nervously. He shakes out his hair and glances down into the fancy shopping bag sitting in the opened container.

“What if I don’t want to make you be him?”

The last cinch pushes the trim of the corset into the soft lower edge of Donghun’s breast and he hisses. It doesn’t hurt, not exactly—the pressure is at least as bracing as it is restrictive—it’s that everywhere else feels _more_ exposed now, more tender, sensitive even to the air stirred up by Yuchan rustling around him. The slight resistance when he breathes makes everything ticklish and sharp and lovesick. He feels a little caught. He can only see himself as a distorted gold-lit smudge in the dark window, but he feels ensnared by the pretty thing Yuchan is making him, mesmerized by what else he could become in Yuchan’s hands.

“What if I want to make you be you? You—what did they call you that you liked so much—? ‘Flower boy’—”

Donghun leans on his wrist and lets the horror show of happiness wash over him in waves—the richness of Yuchan knowing him, the flattery of Yuchan trying to coax him into compliance, the gorgeousness of his skill at it. Donghun will do anything Yuchan wants, Yuchan doesn’t know how much, but the fact that Yuchan’s still working for it—working phenomenally for it—is sending Donghun into quiet hysterics. He can’t let Yuchan know how gone he is, not if he wants to see everything Yuchan has for him.

“I’m not weak,” says Donghun. Not his best try, but he has all night.

“I think you can be,” says Yuchan reasonably. “A little bit. For me.”

“No.”

Yuchan nocks his thumb under Donghun’s chin.

“For me only?”

Donghun grins into Yuchan’s hand.

“What about you?” he says. “You don’t want to…put on makeup or anything?”

Yuchan freezes. Donghun will have to try better to fluster Yuchan without actually rattling his nerves.

“Uh. Do…you want me to?”

“No, no.” Donghun backpedals. “You’re so pretty right now. You’ve never looked prettier than right now.”

Yuchan’s voice goes soft and mumbly.

“Stop it.”

“You’re pretty and I’ll say so! Try to stop me!”

Yuchan snarls cheerfully and moves closer, pressing his fingers lightly into Donghun’s jugular. His teeth click together as he takes a bite of the air in front of Donghun’s face.

“Don’t…tell me what to do!” Yuchan’s nose wrinkles at his retort falling flat in the hair’s breadth between them.

A laugh bursts free before Donghun can catch it. He doesn’t want Yuchan to take it for mockery when it’s not—it’s just relief that Yuchan doesn’t know how to bully him any more than Donghun knows how to be small and writhing and compliant. If Donghun isn’t Junhee, Yuchan isn’t Byeongkwan, either. Thank god.

Yuchan’s mouth twitches reflexively as Donghun keeps laughing.

“Ooh, shut up,” he says, trying not to grin back. Donghun straightens his face.

“You can’t do it,” Donghun says. He lets his lips part, his eyelids slide almost completely shut, but the soft fold of a smile in the hollow of his cheek gives him away. “You can’t control me.”

Yuchan kneels at the edge of the bed. He looks up at Donghun and grasps his hand. He’s beaming—whatever he’s planning, he’s excited. That’s what finally makes a chill slip down Donghun’s throat into his stomach.

“I don’t need to control you,” Yuchan says. He pats Donghun’s thighs. “C’mon. Off the bed for a second. Let me show you.”

“I thought you showed me,” says Donghun. He begins to lower himself off the mattress, realizes he’s acquiescing again, and reverses—but Yuchan grabs him and pulls him down.

Off balance, Donghun has to tumble to the floor. He rolls onto his back as glamorously as he can, extending one leg and bending the other slightly at the knee, folding a hand under his head and resting his cheek there. The corset makes it easy to move gingerly, to breathe shallowly, like a feather on a puff of air.

Yuchan gives a low, groaning laugh at Donghun being a diva on the rug. With Donghun absorbed in contortions, he leans back and finally lifts the shopping bag out of the storage bin. He reaches inside and casually, almost tersely, he slaps the contents down onto Donghun’s stomach.

Donghun flinches, then squints. First, the shoes are too close for him to focus on; then, by the time he gets himself to a more upright position, Yuchan has already pulled them away and set them on the floor at a short, sheepish distance, like strays he’s about to beg to adopt. Donghun does what he would do if that’s what they really were—he lifts them, with curious tenderness, into his lap.

They’re high heels. Donghun’s first thought is they look monstrous—tall, sharp, stiletto, their black vinyl cheap but reflectively new, a flimsy buckled strap over the ankles making them daintier but no less dangerous. And then there are custom adornments. The right shoe has an enormous black satin bow that trails almost to the floor, affixed with a nasty-looking skull pin at its center. The left is dotted with a weird arrangement of chrome spikes and red teardrop rhinestones neatly super-glued in place, along with razor blade shapes drawn with silver paint markers in a style Donghun finds vaguely familiar.

On further consideration, they look incredible—or, at least, they pass well for avant-garde, and someone worked hard on them. Still—Donghun’s not about to wear them.

“Sorry, I’m not…” begins Donghun.

Yuchan reddens.

“Not you,” he says. His hand is white-knuckled around his ankle where he sits. He’s still wearing a hoodie and jeans.

“They don’t match your outfit,” Donghun says to mask the near panic creeping over him as the image of Yuchan, tall and leggy and evil in these stupid DIY punk shoes, fighting for the nerve to step on his stomach, solidifies in his head.

Yuchan’s jaw juts in annoyance. He snatches the shoes back from Donghun. He wriggles out of his hoodie and throws it forcefully in Donghun’s direction. Donghun holds it against chest, enjoying its warmth on his exposed skin, until he looks at Yuchan and has to let everything—the hoodie, his body, his defenses—fall.

Yuchan straightens. He shows himself off over Donghun almost angrily. Under the hoodie, apparently, he’s been wearing a black mesh shirt with sporty stripes down the arms and a zip-up neckline. The waistline of his jeans rises surprisingly high and wide-belted. He doesn’t just look good—he looks _styled_, even though he’s bare-faced, soft-haired. He looks long and modern and mean. Donghun loves it.

“Shit,” Donghun notes, blankly. “Cute.” He’s still not sure the shoes will match.

Through the sheer shirt, Donghun can see Yuchan’s heart leaping into his throat.

Yuchan has to perch awkwardly on the edge of the bed to slip into the ridiculous heels. Once they’re on, he sits still for a moment as if stunned, as if he’s forgotten what his feet are for. Then he leans back on his wrists and stretches one leg in front of him, jackknifing it weightlessly through the air across his body to fold it over the other. He jiggles his foot and watches the black skull bow float up and down like a butterfly on the arc of his instep. He rolls up the cuffs of his jeans so Donghun can get a better view of the shape of his ankles and calves.

Yuchan’s legs are already pretty. Like this, they’re…

Donghun slides across the floor toward Yuchan’s feet, feebly feigning interest in the shoes. Watching the spikes and rhinestones glint in the dull lamplight, watching the bow flutter hypnotically against Yuchan’s toes, he thinks he recognizes the bizarre style.

“Who made you these?”

When Donghun’s face nears Yuchan’s ankle, Yuchan slows the swinging of his foot through the air, cautious not to swipe Donghun with an errant sharp heel. Donghun catches Yuchan’s calf in his hand. He extends his fingers just under the rolled cuff of Yuchan’s jeans, tracing the wiry muscles there. Yuchan peers down at him blankly.

“Sehyoon-hyung.” Yuchan’s voice is unnervingly level and soft. He sounds enchanted somehow, like the jittering and beaming and embarrassment and anger that whirl wildly through his body one after the other have been suspended in some kind of magic mist.

Donghun draws a line with his nose down the exposed part of Yuchan’s shin. He can feel Yuchan tense up on the mattress, hear Yuchan’s painful little breath.

“Sehyoon. I knew it. I am going to suck his dick.”

Yuchan lets out a loud, choking laugh. The same second, Donghun finds Yuchan’s foot gone from his hand and feels a stiletto digging into his naked shoulder, forcing him backward on his knees.

Yuchan sits there for a second longer to look at Donghun. One heeled foot rests on the floor, the other carefully on Donghun’s collarbone. Yuchan props his elbows on his knees, hands hanging slack, chin resting on his wrist. He can’t seem to close his mouth. The bridge of his nose wrinkles like it does when he’s singing or straining to see something. Donghun’s face is level with Yuchan’s crotch and the impulse to dart forward, to kiss Yuchan through his jeans, gets the better of him—but at the slightest movement Yuchan pushes him harder. The tip of the heel scrapes Donghun’s chest, searing, until Donghun has to topple.

Yuchan stands up to tower over Donghun’s body. He only wobbles on the first step. Donghun scoots back across the floor so he can stare up at him in awe. He fiddles with the corset laces to keep himself from grabbing Yuchan’s leg again. Yuchan looks down at his feet, at the strange and gorgeous arch of his ankles under the cuffed jeans, and his shoulders rise up to his ears in an uncontrollable grin.

Donghun can feel his forehead crumpling, his nose burning as a pang almost stirs up tears.

“No, you’re _so_ cute,” he says before he can help it.

Yuchan’s face flashes bold and angry again. He swings his right foot like a pendulum, skimming up over Donghun’s thigh, his dick, his heart. Donghun beams, eyes really watering now, as Yuchan’s stiletto pushes into the soft exposed skin of his breast before moving back down to the corset-protected flat of his stomach, where Yuchan applies only enough pressure for Donghun to give a soft grunt and lean his head back.

“No more ‘cute’,” says Yuchan. A little more weight this time, sensitive on Donghun’s lower ribs.

“Cute or not,” gasps Donghun, “you’ll make me suffer, won’t you?”

Yuchan’s mouth twitches again, adorably. He drags the heel down Donghun’s body like a blade. It hops off the corset and raises a white scrape on Donghun’s hipbone; Donghun gives a tenderly offended yell.

“That’s right.”

Yuchan lifts his foot off Donghun and slips out of the high heels already, turning to hide a wince. His pinched-pink toes squirm against the floor.

He takes the long carton and begins unspooling huge sheets of cloudy plastic, the kind painters use to protect furniture. He covers the whole bed in it, like a big bug producing a cocoon. It floats and crumples and catches the light in a muddled, gossamery blur.

“Ah, we used this for the music video,” Donghun says.

“Huhn?”

“The plastic…like on the couch…hanging from the...”

Yuchan isn’t listening.

“Okay,” he says. He clears his throat. “Okay. Hyung. Here’s what I have for you.” He picks up the candy-striped medical supply box and rattles it. “I think you’ll like it, but um—tell me if you don’t and we’ll do something else—”

He pats down the plastic on the bed with a rustle, indicating for Donghun to sit. Donghun struggles to his feet and lowers himself onto the crinkly cloud. He was prepared to bleed tonight—that was the point—but it’s his first time registering what the plastic sheeting is for. He suddenly feels cold and shivery again—but exhilarated too, like standing soaking on the high dive on a windy day.

Yuchan shakes open the box. It’s a hundred packaged hypodermic needles.

“Have you heard of play piercing? Is that something that sounds fun?”

“Oh! Oh? Woah.” Donghun can’t contain himself. Yuchan watches him carefully.

“That’s fine?”

“I’m not sure!” says Donghun, but he wants it. “I actually—I actually like piercing,” he adds, clumsily but truthfully. “In general.”

“Yeah, I thought—I mean—” Yuchan motions to the medical tape on Donghun’s eyebrow. Donghun’s heart flutters again at the sudden warmth of Yuchan knowing him like that. He can feel Yuchan’s excitement and nervousness like a mirror of his own.

“Yeah, try it, try it,” Donghun hears himself saying. “I want to. Does it bleed?”

Yuchan is already spilling wrapped needles onto the floor, tearing open alcohol pads. He worms his hands into black latex gloves.

“No, or only a little? I think it depends on the person.”

Donghun nods fiercely, like an exam-taker.

“I’ll bleed, then. I’ll make sure to.”

Yuchan makes it halfway to laughing. He kneels and looks over Donghun’s legs. An icy trail of alcohol breezes across Donghun’s thigh as Yuchan sanitizes his skin.

“You have to hold still.”

“I can hold still.”

But there’s an involuntary twitch under his navel when the first one goes in, even though Donghun can barely feel it, the slightest prodding sensation sewn through the skin just above his knee. He knows his eyes are wide when he looks at the blue cone at one end, the faint groove of the steel under flesh, the hollow sharp poking out the other side. There’s no blood, no sting, but still—

“It’s kind of cool.”

Yuchan forcefully lets out a bated breath. He glances up at Donghun, his eyes just as huge.

“It didn’t hurt?”

Donghun shakes his head. He smiles. He thinks he might feel _something_—some lightness, some sense of being pressed, pinned, held—but it must be in his head.

“Not yet. You’ll have to do a lot.”

Yuchan begins to work carefully on Donghun’s thighs, slotting in needles in spiny parallel rows, his face just inches away. There’s a rhythm—the papers peeled open, Yuchan turning back to him, his hair falling over his forehead as he bends intently, the airy pinch, over in an instant, then again.

At first, Donghun plays with Yuchan when he ducks close—slides his fingers over Yuchan’s scalp, toys with his ear, pesters him while he tries to concentrate. Then, subtly, slowly, without noticing, Donghun becomes serious. The fuller his skin gets, the less he can move; a tingly, warm sting starts to cover the whole surface of his thighs as pressure builds across his body. He shifts a little where he sits, the plastic beneath him crinkling and floating up. The corset’s still there, he forgot, the feeling of its tough edge brushing against his nipple when he moves surprises him. He feels—heavy, good heavy—

Yuchan stops and looks up when he feels Donghun lean away for the first time. His mouth is open and tinted bright by shallow breathing. He absorbs Donghun’s faint, pink-cheeked discomfort, trying to make sympathy shine through the obvious hunger in his face. His eyelids flutter when he finally notices Donghun’s heavy feeling, Donghun’s dick swollen in his underwear.

“It’s good?” His voice is lazy, but he’s winded.

“It’s starting to.” Donghun palms the bare, sex-flushed, stiletto-scraped skin of his chest. “To feel good, I mean—”

Yuchan guides Donghun’s knees apart so he can shuffle even closer in, close enough to rustle against the plastic. Donghun can’t help following Yuchan with his hips, even though the movement twinges in his thighs. The more he notices it, the better it is, the more he wants. He touches his chest again, wondering how it would feel if…

Yuchan’s hand goes there too, in its black glove. He feels for Donghun’s pulse in the center of his chest. Then he moves over to the safer spot, between Donghun’s nipple and collarbone.

“You want it here?”

“Could you?”

Yuchan wipes alcohol across Donghun’s breast and slips three needles through the skin, one after the other, like laying tracks over his heart. He’s fast, so fast the alcohol can’t dry before the puncture stings. It’s more sensitive this time. Donghun squirms again. Again, there’s no real pain, not right away—but the longer the metal hangs in his skin like claws, the more his body hums, the pressure and the rush and the restricted movement making him giddy. It’s like something rising under him, lifting him from inside. It _does_ hurt, now, in an unfamiliar, glowing kind of way. Donghun reaches out, and that hurts—his knees list unconsciously farther apart as he gets harder, and _that_ hurts—Donghun sees every itch, every jab, every gnawing, prickly feeling reflected impulse-for-impulse in Yuchan’s face.

Yuchan’s throat makes an unlatching sound. His gloved fingers flick the plastic parts of the needles, stimulating more, making sparkles scatter under Donghun’s skin. Donghun’s spine stiffens. It’s suddenly overwhelming. He doesn’t have to exaggerate his winces to make Yuchan moan anymore. His head jerks back. He grips Yuchan’s wrists.

“Chan—” he breathes, “Yuchan-ah—help me—”

Yuchan shudders.

There’s blood. Just barely, just tiny droplets like red mites, pushed out by Donghun’s pulse at the piercings on his chest and upper thighs. He feels the wetness before he sees it, hears Yuchan’s wild breath before he even feels it.

Donghun doesn’t know if it’s allowed, but before he can think, he pulls the lowermost needle from his chest. The impossibly small wound gives up what he wants from it. Dark blood beads down his skin and bursts bright on the corset’s white trim.

Yuchan looks at him, mildly shocked.

“Good job,” he says. Donghun isn’t sure that’s what Yuchan meant to say—Yuchan smirks a little and plucks the needle out of Donghun’s hand to stow it somewhere safe, as if confiscating it from a child.

“Take them out for me,” Donghun whispers. “Take them…so you can touch me…”

Yuchan frees him like unsnaring a bird, pin by pin. He puts the used sharps back in the box, sweet worrier. He crawls onto the bed in a wave of rippled plastic. His nose brushes into the halo of warmth and pain arcing across Donghun’s body; he sips the dots of blood from Donghun’s chest and Donghun’s skin tastes the inside of Yuchan’s mouth, mossy, rust. Yuchan’s moan vibrates deep enough in Donghun’s ribs to make his heart stutter.

Yuchan’s eyes squint shut and his head rolls back on his neck at an uncomfortable angle. Donghun watches him realize he wants out of his clothes, but can’t move to help him. He feels fucked, his skin throbbing where the needles were, a deafening buzz of relief where the nagging discomfort was. He can only lie down under Yuchan and try to catch his breath while Yuchan’s belly pushes against him. It doesn’t work. The air is heavy, Yuchan on top of him is heavy, the corset too, and Yuchan’s breathing is so loud and ragged it keeps time in both their bodies. Donghun doesn’t mind. He moves Yuchan’s hand down to his dick, faintly surprised by snag of the glove against his stomach—_feel_, he murmurs, and Yuchan grunts, feeling.

Yuchan pulls away to peel off his mesh shirt and his jeans. He ducks back down and drags the few sparse drops of blood into delicate threads between his and Donghun’s thighs. Donghun leans his head back, the rustling sound loud in his ears. He feels Yuchan expose his teeth against his skin as he kisses him on the throat—one of them has finally remembered to smile.

“I want—” Donghun starts as Yuchan rocks down harder and smothers him, laughing distantly. “I want to bleed for you,” he gasps. “More than this.”

“Okay,” says Yuchan with ruthless energy. He pushes himself up on Donghun’s shoulders, pinning Donghun flat against the bed. “How much?”

Donghun looks up at Yuchan. Yuchan’s face is almost blank, almost animal. A fine wisp of blood, like a stray hair, streaks along his cheek. He’s dull and oily, completely bare, imperfectly-shaven, even—but he poses his features so prettily, so sincerely. Every angle of him wants to open Donghun up.

It takes everything—everything, so much it almost makes Donghun weak—not to answer stupidly, not to offer his entire life to make his favorite person’s dick happy for one night, because he’s not afraid at all. Not unless this sharp, loud, exposed feeling, like cold air lashing him, that makes his cock hard, that makes him want to cry out into something vast enough to swallow the sound—well, if this is fear, he wants it forever. But he doesn’t think it is.

He reaches up and tugs a strand of the hair that hangs in Yuchan’s shadowed, shining face, feels Yuchan’s raised pores and sweat on the pad of his finger. Yuchan’s long eyelashes tickle his palm.

“I want to,” Donghun says. He pouts, makes his eyes sparkle, watches the spasm in Yuchan’s face as affection cuts through the wild open-mouthed wanting. “You’ll be careful with me, won’t you?”

It’s either a joke or Donghun’s last lazy effort not to die _too_ gleefully, to be able to say to the angels _hey, I asked him to be careful. _

Yuchan’s still grinning, eyes narrowed as if to say _you’re funny._

“Of course,” he says. He fits his hands over Donghun’s wrists and brings his knee up the inside of Donghun’s thigh, nudging into his balls until Donghun has to scoot back and let his head hang off the mattress. “You’re precious.”

Donghun was prepared to bleed, but he’s not prepared for what that does for him. Yuchan moves in unison with the bone-deep thrill that washes up Donghun’s body. He slides himself against Donghun, straddled on top of him, grinding on him too gently, teasing him—laughing when Donghun’s dick pushes up at his hip.

“Blush,” he says. It’s an order, pronounced with scornful daintiness, like a princess waving her hand. Donghun’s head feels thick with blood already, but heat starts to simmer from his face. _That bad?_ Donghun thinks. _That this one can just say ‘blush’ and I’ll blush?_ The thought makes his face even warmer until he feels parched, feverish. The space heater radiating in the room…his pulse loud in his ears…if Yuchan doesn’t stop moving…

Yuchan lifts off Donghun and slips into a crouch beside the bed. Yuchan supports Donghun’s inverted head in a still-gloved hand—the black latex slightly rumpled now, and clinging to Donghun’s hair—and bites open the wrapper of a new needle. Donghun gasps softly at the sound and Yuchan echoes him involuntarily, slightly higher, slightly lighter. He grins at Yuchan upside-down. Donghun’s eyes are red, the veins in his neck and on his forehead forking under his skin. He’s still not scared.

Yuchan is. Yuchan is scared sick, but something’s taking over that will allow it all to happen easily. Maybe it’s coming from Yuchan, maybe from Donghun—maybe it would never have come at all if they weren’t here like this, hooked together in this shape over the edge of the bed in this room in this building in this typhoon.

Yuchan smooths Donghun’s hair back, resolutely keeps from shaking or squinting, and carefully pricks Donghun’s forehead.

A huge black pearl of blood swells and bursts, and then another. Blood ribbons slow and thick through Donghun’s hair into Yuchan’s hands. Yuchan cradles Donghun and kisses him, smears dark spots into vivid strokes over Donghun’s face. Donghun’s noises are quiet and muddled, faint disgust at the top of his stomach and arousal at the bottom of it, a soft exhilarated sound, a softer love sound.

Every time Donghun breathes, every time his heartbeat slips another bead onto the string of blood at his forehead, Yuchan can’t suppress a moan. Donghun laughs at Yuchan with his eyes squeezed shut. He extends his arm in a kind of backstroke motion to let his hand hang by Yuchan’s ear. His tongue curls out over his upper lip and he tastes the reddish film tracked there by Yuchan’s mouth.

“Hah, you sound like a bird…”

“What kind of bird does this?”

Yuchan leans forward and bites into Donghun’s shoulder, scraping over to his neck, sucking on his skin, snarling,

“I should kill you—”

Donghun cries out, not with fear but recognition, relief at the familiar aggressive, frenzied feeling after all that eerie hesitation.

“You’d better.”

Donghun’s gasps and whines rattle through Yuchan’s teeth up into Yuchan’s skull, Donghun’s heart hammering against the red of Yuchan’s tongue. Blood trailed onto Yuchan’s back by the brush of Donghun’s hair. The only real place in the world is where Donghun’s blood touches Yuchan’s skin. It keeps Yuchan bobbing in for more, drawn to that tether, that point of transference where Donghun lets himself spill out, to cover and include Yuchan, his favorite.

Yuchan takes in the smell of iron like the smell of the sea. []he wonders how long it will be possible not to come when every throb of Donghun’s pulse constricts in every part of h[][] body, when []he feels so full it hurts—

Yuchan remembers to surface, to be safe. Every moment of forced clarity is sickening, like emerging from warm water into freezing air.

“How are you doing?”

“Ah,” Donghun says. His voice is too soft. His breath sounds broken on the ridge of his spine beneath him. His head and shoulders are tender and red. He’s still smiling.

Yuchan presses him gently.

“Are you okay? Quickly, yes or no.”

“Yes,” Donghun says.

Yuchan climbs back onto the bed and pulls Donghun upright. Donghun supports himself with his arm locked out against Yuchan’s chest; his hands fit into the bloody handprints where Yuchan has been trying to hold in h[][] own leaping heart. He breathes easier as the bleeding slows and the dark suffocating flush fades from his face. The drip down his temple is lazy now, but Yuchan sees him feel it running down his skin for the first time, shuddering at the dirty, wet warmth. Donghun’s thigh is hot on the outside of Yuchan’s thigh.

Yuchan digs into the corset laces and loosens until Donghun sighs. The rough tug pulls them closer and Yuchan tries to whisper wickedly in Donghun’s ear.

“Have I made you weak yet?”

“Nope.”

Donghun squeezes the back of Yuchan’s neck to prove it.

He kisses Yuchan hard with blood, blood moving between their mouths on spit, on salt from the tears that Donghun laughed out upside-down. He effortlessly guides Yuchan back down into their burning, breathless space. He soothes the sickness and fear that threaten Yuchan’s balance, gives back just enough for Yuchan to be fierce and strong again—allows only this, only this to stay.

Flipped over the edge of the bed and bleeding, Donghun had felt too giddy and weird to stay hard; now he’s warming up again with Yuchan’s hungry tongue in his mouth. Yuchan’s beautiful whining. The corset hangs half-open and Donghun can take deep, rhythmic breaths. Donghun lifts it off over his head.

He moves Yuchan’s hand to where he wants it, his chest, his waist, his ass. Yuchan is drawing Donghun’s blood, wrapping his hand around him, taking from him, _taking_—but somehow now Yuchan is bottoming. Suddenly everything Donghun does is fucking Yuchan. Just breathing on him, bleeding on him, fighting back, giving up his weight into his arms, biting his lip, even pretending to be weak for him is fucking him. It’s clear in the sounds he makes. He can’t hear Donghun gasp without gasping harder.

“Let me taste it,” Donghun says, and Yuchan clumsily hooks his hand over Donghun’s mouth.

Donghun flicks his tongue up Yuchan’s heart line into the ticklish crease between his fingers, smearing blood into the glove before licking it away. The taste of iron and plasma and plastic makes his eyes stream. He opens his mouth until three of Yuchan’s fingers fit inside and sucks. Yuchan moans. His fingers curl violently against Donghun’s palate but Donghun clamps down harder, keeps pushing between Yuchan’s fingers with his tongue. Yuchan’s head wobbles back and a sound like sobbing comes out of him. His knees float up a little from the mattress—the soles of his feet crinkle the sheeting now stamped all over with bloody handprints. Yuchan’s other hand grips Donghun’s shoulder painfully.

“God,” Yuchan says, “God, what the _fuck—_”

Donghun grunts for Yuchan’s benefit as Yuchan’s fingers bruise his mouth and arm. The noise Yuchan answers with is louder. It’s hot in the room, dizzyingly hot, the space heater and their bodies and the blood, even the yellow light is dark red, hot. Yuchan gasps “Let go” and Donghun lets him pull his hand free. Before Donghun knows it Yuchan’s crawling past him to the window. He watches hazily as Yuchan moves aside picture frames and candles and little toys so he can get the window open.

The storm is still so loud. Rain gusts into the room like ocean spray, shattering on the plastic sheet, washing some of Donghun’s blood away. Outside, power lines bob between the sketched gold circles of the streetlights. Donghun shivers, but it feels good. The wind is cooling the warm blood on his face.

Yuchan hunches at the windowsill, breathing hard. He half-turns back toward Donghun and holds out his hand. His forehead is furrowed, his mouth won’t close, his waist shudders when he tries to kneel. Donghun shifts toward him—allows himself to be pulled into the cold, into Yuchan’s close hug like a ballroom dancer, spun around, nudged back—he throws his arm reflexively over Yuchan’s neck.

Yuchan half-lifts Donghun and lays him across the hard, uneven surfaces of the bed frame and the window ledge. He crawls up, pins Donghun in place with his body, holds him tightly, and lowers his head out of the open window.

Donghun cries out in shock as rain washes his face from all directions, chilly and thrilling, fat drops flung around in whipping mist. He has to shout with laughter just to catch his breath, letting water into his nose and mouth. How did he never know rain and blood taste the same? Sweet and mineral—like—snowmelt, like—metallic sugar powder.

His back is in pain, bruising on the awkward shapes supporting him—the bedframe under his butt, the corner of the ledge against his spine, the sill digging into his shoulder blades—but everything else feels so good. He’s secure after that first swooping feeling, not afraid at all of falling. This is exactly what he wanted. The wind stings his skin, the cold surges from one side of his body to the other, waking him up, making everything glitter. Blood and tears keep warming his face only to slip away in the rain.

On top of him, Yuchan is clinging to him so hard he shakes. Donghun sticks to the heat of Yuchan’s belly pressed to his. He tries and fails to writhe under the bold imprint of Yuchan’s dick into his hip. Yuchan is gasping again, almost as loud as the wind in Donghun’s ears; he watches the watery blood flowing fast down Donghun’s face, tastes its sweetness too, flinches at the cold, finds warmth again in Donghun’s tongue. He grinds down on Donghun, making pain shoot up Donghun’s spine, and with it the first faint flash of fear—that Yuchan could crush him here across the window ledge. Donghun sucks in a breath and swallows rain.

“You—” The wet rattle of his own voice startles him as water and blood run down his throat. He kicks his hips up despite himself, even though it hurts a lot, he has to—his hand finds the back of Yuchan’s thigh and he pulls Yuchan even harder against him, groaning when he’s able to create heat from friction between their bodies. Yuchan’s head shakes and more water runs from his face onto Donghun’s. Donghun hears Yuchan make another sound, grinds up against him again, hears him make another one, higher, louder. Again—this time Yuchan yells. He barely recovers enough to return the movement with a strangled laugh. When Donghun grunts in pain Yuchan lets out a full-throated moan. It’s him who sounds weak now, desperate, overwhelmed. Donghun giggles through gritted teeth. It hurts—it’s good and it hurts horribly—and it’s _good_—

“You’re—”

“Huh—?” Yuchan is rigid, vibrating, twisted awkwardly. He tries to hold on, tries hard to hear Donghun, to make sure he’s okay, but he’s—his stomach tightens, something’s—

“Don’t stop,” Donghun says. It’s all he can say. He thinks his back is breaking, but he’ll let it happen if it means he can get one more shudder out of Yuchan, one more shout. He grinds up against Yuchan again, pulls Yuchan’s hips down and forces him to grind back. “_Don’t_ stop.”

“I’m not,” says Yuchan. “I’m not. I’m not. I’m—”

Yuchan grimaces and his limbs loosen, almost as if he’s going to let Donghun go. Donghun stiffens involuntarily and clutches Yuchan harder. Startled, eyes enormous and blank, Yuchan lifts Donghun away from the window, back onto the plastic-sheeted bed. Donghun slips into a seated position with his back to the bedframe, his spine aching as he bends forward. He feels light-headed when the heat of the room hits his face. Rain streams icily down his back. He blinks. He can’t see Yuchan—

He sees Yuchan’s bare shoulder now, close to his face, golden in the light and slick with rain. Yuchan has fallen on his elbows and knees on the bed. His head hangs over Donghun’s lap, water dropping from his hair. He sways violently—his cheek hits Donghun’s knee hard and Donghun puts a protective hand to Yuchan’s face. He feels Yuchan’s skin burning on his palm, Yuchan’s wet lower lip smudging his wrist, Yuchan’s nose wrinkled in a helpless snarl. Yuchan’s breath comes far too fast. He glances up through his hair at Donghun and tries to laugh but can’t without gasping again. He chokes and twists his face away. He seems almost queasy, or in pain himself, tense and unsteady.

Donghun pushes against Yuchan’s head.

“You okay?” Speaking makes his throat sear.

Yuchan laughs, raggedly but distinctly this time. His elbow slides out from under him and he buckles onto his side.

“Uh-_huh_—”

He twists around rapidly and grabs Donghun, pulls him down. Yuchan is lying heaving on his back and Donghun is flat on top of him and he can feel Yuchan coming. Yuchan’s neck arches up; his head falls back and thuds on the bedframe. His cock lurches in the suffocating space between their stomachs and feeling floods back to Donghun’s dick with a sensitive, sore rush, _fuck—_Donghun crooks his arm under Yuchan’s head, preventing it from bumping again, and kind of cradles him the way Yuchan cradled him in the window. Yuchan’s eyes squeeze shut and wring out tiny tears. Donghun feels the spreading wetness that isn’t blood or rain. Kisses him. Yuchan’s tongue slips in hungrily but freezes as he gags and spasms and fades. He leans back into Donghun’s arm, closes his mouth, spit, pink diluted blood, rain, tears, everything still shining on his cheeks and chin. All expression has slipped away. Only the dark flush in his face stays, along with the deep, rumbling rhythm in his chest.

Donghun gives him only a minute before rocking him gently.

“Kang Yuchan,” he says through his teeth, surprised when his tongue tastes salty and wet. “Are you trying to hide from me?”

Yuchan’s lips part before his eyelids do. He pulls an uneven, guilty grin; he scrunches his nose and tries again. His real smile comes out, the perfect one.

“Aha—” He laughs his real laugh, too, blaring and awkward. He looks up at Donghun. “You know—you know I can’t.”

Donghun shivers a little when a gust flings more rain into the room. Yuchan clears his throat and sits up. Smiling, he stretches across Donghun to pull the window shut. Donghun touches Yuchan’s stomach as he leans in, touches the dampness in Yuchan’s underwear, provoking a twitch in Yuchan’s waist. Yuchan sits back down facing Donghun so their knees knock together like tree branches.

“Mmm,” says Donghun. He feels shy now, while Yuchan seems to be reviving. His body can’t decide if it’s hot or cold, sore as in sick or aching as in wanting more. He can only identify the pull in the pit of his stomach, threatening to overwhelm him, deepening when he looks at Yuchan. He can hold it at bay for a moment at a time by focusing on other things—the cold, the pain, the slurry of blood and water on the plastic sheet—but then those things warm and suggestive to him too. Nothing helps.

“Hyung—” Yuchan peels off his glove and puts his thumb to the puncture on Donghun’s forehead, where the blood smudges the thickest but has stopped running out. He paints it down Donghun’s nose absentmindedly—the light tracing touch sends an electric bolt to the back of Donghun’s throat.

“Don’t ‘hyung’ me right now,” he says. “Do you know what you’re doing. Do you know how you look. God—”

“Hy—ah, um…” Yuchan grins, torn between his two familiar states of eager and anxious when he sees Donghun’s hard cock and shaking stomach on the one hand, his painfully hunched shoulders and bruising back on the other. “Do you—what do you need?”

Donghun embarrasses himself with a wordless whine. He makes his eyes shine at Yuchan, hoping Yuchan will be able to read his body better than he can. He finds himself quietly begging Yuchan for something he couldn’t give back, because he knows Yuchan has it and he doesn’t—the ability to see—

Yuchan’s eyes move over Donghun. He pouts slightly, contemplating. He gets a glint in his eye. Donghun forces his mind to empty.

“You could fuck me,” Yuchan says. “For real, what if you fucked me. You want to, don’t you? You always want to, and I’m always shy—”

Donghun moans and sinks forward. He slides his hands down Yuchan’s ribs, around his folded waist.

“You’re killing me,” he says. “You’re _killing_ me. I want—but seriously, it hurts, I don’t think—”

Even slouching, even sighing, pain scorches the bones in his back and the skin on his chest. It’s not something he can endure anymore. Not _even_ to fuck Yuchan. It’s miserable.

Yuchan gnaws his lip and looks pityingly at Donghun, in a way Donghun doesn’t want to like as much as he does. He pushes to his feet and looks around for clothes but gives up. He just changes his underwear and goes to the door.

“Don’t leave—”

“Ten seconds,” says Yuchan. Donghun opens his mouth but Yuchan shouts him down. “Ten seconds!”

Yuchan comes back with towels. He puts his hand under Donghun’s thigh so he can get the splattered plastic sheeting out from under him. He folds the corners up cautiously and scoots it away across the floor. He loops a towel over Donghun’s back and begins to press Donghun’s hair dry before Donghun stubbornly takes over. When they’re cleaned up just enough, Yuchan sits next to Donghun on the mattress. The shifting weight makes Donghun feel how soft the covers are, how warm and dry, after all that soggy crinkling.

Yuchan glances down, assessing Donghun’s body again. He leans close and looks boldly into Donghun’s face. He licks the smallest remaining fleck of blood from his own thumb, flares his nostrils at the taste, makes sure Donghun sees the way his lip bends under his knuckle.

“Lie back,” he says.

It’s too easy. Donghun uncoils with a soft groan on the bed, finally, the heat of the room dissolving him, tiredness crowding the corners of his eyes. Yuchan hovers in the visible space for a moment and he has never looked so gorgeous—not in red, not in lipstick, not in glittering green, just his own long eyelashes and big dark eyes and shiny naked skin. Light scrapes track over his shoulders. The flush in his cheeks and chest still lingers, still makes him look like a doll. His face is quiet with patient interest.

He blinks at Donghun, lowers his eyes, then lowers his head. He trails from Donghun’s line of sight, leaving a silhouette of humming color in the circle of the lamplight on the ceiling. Donghun feels Yuchan’s chin rolling down his chest, his stomach, bumping over his hip bone, down as far as his knee. When Yuchan’s nose traces up the inside of his thigh, Donghun has to claw at his own throat to stop himself kicking out and catching Yuchan on the ear. Yuchan’s hand is jittery and gruff on Donghun’s waistband, tight and shocking around the base of his cock.

But Yuchan’s mouth is so warm. So soft and cautious. He pushes the tip of his tongue down under the head of Donghun’s cock in a tiny, pinpointed stroke. He hooks his tongue back slightly, lifting Donghun’s shaft into his mouth while sliding over it, not quite closing his lips yet. Donghun gasps.

“Ah, teeth—”

Yuchan makes an apologetic sound through his nose. It worsens as he flinches, fighting embarrassment, then eases as he makes up for it with a fluid forward motion. Donghun groans. It’s so good it makes him dizzy. His skull digs back into the mattress and the ceiling bobs overhead. Yuchan’s being so gentle with him, and he needs it. He wants to get up on his elbows—he’s desperate to see how Yuchan looks—but he can’t move. His palm can only scrunch the blanket at his side. He tries to rock upward to meet Yuchan’s mouth, to help steady Yuchan’s shy, faltering rhythm, but even that aches. Yuchan finds it, though—he slips his hand under Donghun and grabs his ass, supporting his hips. He ducks forward while lifting Donghun close, drags back while letting Donghun down, does it again. He pulls his lips tight and spit smears, hot and soft, onto his cheek.

Donghun whines—Yuchan answers with a hum, a low rumble Donghun can feel, intense enough to make him try to hold the next gasps in his chest. It’s no use—Yuchan gets bolder, too excited by Donghun’s faint noises to remember to be gentle. His tongue curls up under Donghun’s cock the next time he pushes in and Donghun’s breath rattles loose with a breaking sound. Yuchan balks a little as Donghun twitches in his mouth but doesn’t pull away—he sighs determinedly through his nose and pushes forward again, again.

Donghun worms his fingers into Yuchan’s hair. The nagging awkwardness fades; everything fades except the soft squeezing heat of Yuchan’s mouth, the traces of his voice in the hitching way he breathes. Donghun’s eyes close and the room fizzles out in red and green static. Donghun stops hearing the shuffle of the sheets, stops hearing himself moan even as his lungs ache from being loud. The soreness in his back gets remote and dull and he can arch up, only able to ask for it with his body.

Yuchan hesitates when Donghun’s breath catches and without thinking about it Donghun raises his head just a little, manages to look down for a split second. Yuchan’s eyes flick up at Donghun and his lids are heavy, his lashes are wet. There’s that wrinkle of concentration on his cheek, the veins stand out on his temples—but his face is fiercely sweet.

His forehead crumples at the sight of Donghun’s face and Donghun folds too, falls back, he can’t stop it. The last of everything tugged out of him. His eyes must have shut again. He feels more than hears Yuchan’s soft surprised sound, tastes more than feels Yuchan’s hands moving over his body. He isn’t sure how he knows Yuchan is crawling up to lie beside him, rolling over to spit into the blood-spotted towel, burying his face there for a long time before putting his head on Donghun’s chest. Then Yuchan’s weight vanishes.

So does everything else.

Yuchan sits back down on the bed and puts a mug in Donghun’s hand. Everything stills feels cozy, painless—but moving is so hard.

“What is this?”

“Warm water. It should be good for you after bleeding, right?”

Yuchan folds Donghun’s fingers individually around the mug. It is warm. It feels nice. Donghun sits up.

“I dunno,” Donghun says. He takes a sip while giving Yuchan a playful little upward glance, a loving look to cover for watching him carefully.

Yuchan seems fine. His hair is damp with rain and sweat; one hand arranges strands over his eyes while he leans back on the other. His face still shines, pink after being patted dry. He’s put on a giant t-shirt with the neck cut out, showing a suggestion of his pretty chest and big square shoulders. His legs fold long and careless over the side of the bed. He looks full and rosy and relaxed.

Donghun curls and uncurls his toes in the covers as the last soft thrills burn themselves out along his spine. This kid. This motherfucking kid.

Yuchan watches Donghun back, but it’s in a “drink your water” way—not a “hey, is it fine that I laced you into a corset, stepped on you with stilettos, bled you dry, almost threw you out a window in a typhoon, then sucked your dick” way. Right?

Oh no, wait.

Donghun puts the mug down on the window ledge. He stretches his body out and covers Yuchan from behind, wraps him up and holds him. He slots his chin into the divot of Yuchan’s shoulder and can feel Yuchan’s heart beating distant and fast.

“I’m only gonna say this once,” Donghun mumbles in Yuchan’s ear, tickling him on purpose. “Because after what your window did to my back I will need physical therapy. But that was—”

Yuchan turns his head rapidly and catches Donghun on the lips. His mouth still tastes like sex, maybe like blood too, sour and dirty and—

“—so hot.”

Yuchan almost manages not to acknowledge Donghun’s praise with a giddy smile, but all of his teeth show, one after the other, helplessly. He sits back just enough to look Donghun over with a half-frown that can’t hide happiness.

“Your back?” He’s already turning Donghun away from him to get a better view. “Is it that bad?”

Donghun’s pitiful pout can’t be any more convincing than Yuchan’s concerned one. They both just keep grinning at each other. Donghun twists his head to nudge Yuchan’s shoulder with his nose. It does hurt, but he’ll live. He revolves and hangs his legs off the bed so he’s sitting side to side with Yuchan, their thighs and upper arms pressed together.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Donghun feigns innocence.

“I didn’t?”

Yuchan puts his elbow to Donghun’s ribs without actually shoving him. It doesn’t stop Donghun pretending to gasp in pain—or from laughing when Yuchan’s lips part involuntarily at the sound. Yuchan raises his eyebrows and swings his arm back for real, but Donghun catches him by the wrist, still giggling.

“You liked it…” Yuchan looks at Donghun shrewdly. It’s like he can’t bring himself to believe it. “You actually like me, huh?” His voice turns rambunctious and mocking. “_Ooh_, you _like_ me, that’s what it is! You like _me_.”

He’s inviting Donghun to look outraged, and Donghun indulges him with wide, furious eyes. Yuchan bobs his head on his shoulders, beaming, bouncing.

“You like me, you like me—”

Donghun roars at Yuchan, but his teeth stay bared in an uncontrollable smile.

Yuchan’s taunting chorus fades. He squishes his pink cheek down on his fist with a fond but triumphant smirk, mimicking a gesture Donghun often does.

“You wanna know something?” His other hand walks two fingers up Donghun’s pinpricked thigh.

“Absolutely not,” Donghun snaps. Being a bitch is his first and last defense and Yuchan steps right through it like a watery morning cobweb. Yuchan smiles with his tongue folded out over his lower lip.

“I like you, too.”

Donghun quirks his head at Yuchan.

“I think there’s a bug in here,” he says. “Didn’t you hear something just now?”

Yuchan scoffs and smacks Donghun’s chest with the back of his hand. Donghun catches it and holds it there, clapping their palms together gently.

“When are you going to talk to me about it?” he asks. “Not just the blood, but the pretty things, too?”

Yuchan’s smile turns defensive and blank.

“Sometime,” he says. He nods grimly. “Some other time.”

“You talk to the others about it, right?” Donghun can’t help a queasy wave of bitterness washing in with all the nice feelings, and he dislikes himself for it. “Just not me.”

He tries to let it go, but the best he can do is smile, pretend he’s joking.

“Why?” he presses. “Why not me too?”

Yuchan frowns, a serious, dark frown, and Donghun wants to leave. He’s ruining everything so fast, when it was lovely for so long. It’s unbearable. Donghun wants to go back to the physical pain.

“I told you,” Yuchan says. He’s talking softly, through his teeth, a shy smile starting up again even though his eyes are sad. “I just told you why.”

“Tell me again.”

Yuchan suddenly looks tired. Donghun feels so sorry. He wraps Yuchan in his arms again, puts his chin on his shoulders again, starts the comforting gesture over and doesn’t let go. He can feel himself sweating lightly, more than just in the heat of the room, his heart is going as much as it has all night, it’s bad—he doesn’t care if he never knows what it’s about, he just wants Yuchan to stay. Yuchan’s hand hooks over Donghun’s arm. His ear is hot against Donghun’s cheek. He looks straight ahead.

“I like you,” he says. “I like you so much, it makes it hard—I mean, if you want me to talk to you about it, it has to be some other time.”

Donghun breathes out.

“You don’t have to,” he says. “You don’t have to. I won’t ask again. I’m sorry.”

“Hyung.” Yuchan laughs. “Don’t fuss, okay? Keep me company while I clean up. Don’t let your water get cold. Put on some music. Later I’ll see if I can make Junhee cook something.”

“Not hungry.”

“Didn’t I just say not to fuss.”

Donghun rolls himself into the blanket while Yuchan gets up. Yuchan moves cheerfully around the room, piling up the towels, picking needle wrappers like petals off the ground.

“You’re bossy,” Donghun grumbles. He rolls over to see if his phone is somewhere, but Yuchan is already handing it to him.

“Am I?” Yuchan grins. He peers over Donghun’s bare arm at his screen. “Put on something nice.”

“Bossy. ‘We Don’t Talk Together’?”

“Don’t be mean. ‘Dessert.’”

“You’re obsessed with this album. I don’t want to listen to myself right now.” Donghun starts to play the Heize instead.

“This one’s sad. Something else, then—ooh, the one that goes ‘she’s fine, she’s fine, she’s fine’—”

“_That’s_ sad. ‘Palette’ is nice.”

“That one goes ‘I’m truly fine,’ not ‘she’s fine’—”

“Don’t fight me. ‘Palette’ suits you best right now.”

“It suits you more,” Yuchan says, but his face relaxes grudgingly when Donghun plays it. He even sings along sweetly, his hands gathering up garbage and straightening things with delicate, particular touches. _Strangely these days I just like things that are easy_…Donghun rests his chin on his hand.

“See? You know it well.”

“_I prefer dark purple_—” Yuchan interrupts himself. “Dark purple, that’s you.”

The rain softens outside.

“After this, put on ‘Dessert.’”

_Can you see me now_   
_See how I resemble you_   
_Trust me and follow me, come on baby_   
_The twinkling stars are with us_

the end


	12. (deleted scene)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> if you felt like the wowkwan fluff was missing from the BDSM saga, here is the scrapped wowkwan fluff

With the others out at lessons, the dorm has fallen under an enchanted mesh of silence. Well, not quite silence. There’s a hum in Sehyoon’s ears, wild rain seething at the windows, and a kind of shimmering, scuttling effect all over that isn’t quite an aura or a sound—just something, something probably brought on by low fever and lower light. Sehyoon feels at one with the building, its fluorescent bulbs and soggy foundation. He feels like a kind of artificial moss.

He feels fine.

Actually, he feels like dancing. He stands in the kitchen and waves for a minute to a bass line fumbled by bad memory, laughing at himself as he ripples from ankle to wrist and back again. It feels nice, a good exercise for aching joints. Ah, he remembers why he came in here. An enormous Nalgene sits unscrewed in a soap-laced puddle on the countertop. They never bring that one to practice—it’s too big and ugly, clouded with the pulpy ghosts of worn-down and peeled-off stickers. He fills it in the sink—there’s no one to chide him about dormitory pipes, and the tap water rushes at a pleasant interval with the rain that drones along the gutters to the street.

Some goddamn peace and quiet.

There’s been a lot of practicing the last couple weeks. That is to say, a lot of Mario Kart. Things have gotten kind of out of balance. When they’re home, the door to Junhee and Byeongkwan’s room is closed too often. Too much of Yuchan getting a bold, hungry look, talking back with snarling relish over things that aren’t worth it. Too much bickering. The dorm is filthy. Donghun is exhaustingly clingy, almost as bad as last year when Yuchan wasn’t around at all. Byeongkwan’s god complex is raging. Junhee’s showing signs of overuse, his body in too heavy of rotation, mind slowly growing overwhelmed by responsibilities. And when things are out of balance, Sehyoon can’t sleep, so he catches stupid colds and wants to put the other members in a box in the corner and put bricks on top of the box except for at mealtimes obviously because he likes them and wants them to live. He just wishes they would live more quietly.

Sehyoon lugs the water bottle, heavy in his hand, from room to room, picking up discarded socks, sweeping snack wrappers to the floor and shuffling them into a heap with his foot. Every so often, he wanders to the window and opens it to let cold, wet air wash over his face. The humidity makes his skin feel plump and healthy, the breeze breathes for him and cools his cheeks—but too much rain comes in every time, and he gets tired crouching down to blot the floor with dirty laundry. It’s a typhoon, all right.

The dorm doesn’t look much tidier when Byeongkwan gets back, but Sehyoon is working on it. It’s a process, an art. No need to rush.

“I’m _home!_”

Byeongkwan stomps in with a shout, toweling his hair dry while he looks around for Sehyoon. He finds him at the bedroom window, thinking about risking the damp to open it again.

“_How are you feeling_,” Byeongkwan demands by way of a greeting. Sehyoon is faintly surprised to be seen. He’s still more of a piece of moss than a guy. He smiles.

“I was good before,” he says gently. “And I’m good now. All good.”

Byeongkwan exhales. He reaches for Sehyoon’s forehead. Sehyoon holds still and lets the rainwater from Byeongkwan’s palm sink soothingly into his brain.

“I’m glad you stayed home,” says Byeongkwan.

“You know it’s not bad.”

Byeongkwan sucks his cheeks and shrugs. He smooths Sehyoon’s hair fussily, adopting a deliberately cloying tone to cover his tracks.

“Still, in this weather…and the last practice later, don’t forget. Better to rest till then, okay?”

“Mm. Whatever you say, coach. Bring your head here.”

Byeongkwan ducks into Sehyoon’s shoulder so Sehyoon can prop his chin against Byeongkwan’s chilly wet hair. Sehyoon catches a waft of storm and sweat, along with a vague but distinct September smell. Byeongkwan mumbles with his ear against Sehyoon’s neck.

“I’m really just here for a minute, for fresh clothes. I was gonna go with the manager to pick up the boys.”

Sehyoon laughs.

“Ah, good,” he says, patting Byeongkwan’s hip. “Get out of here. I’m busy, anyway.”

Byeongkwan peels himself away and thumps around in the dissolving darkness of Sehyoon’s peripheral vision. Sehyoon blinks sleepily, waiting to be possessed by the spirit of cleaning things again. It might be circling overhead, but before it finds Sehyoon’s body, Byeongkwan pops up with a clean shirt and a smirk.

“OK, bye.”

Already?

“I’m going to kiss you,” Byeongkwan adds, shuffling into a windbreaker. The synthetic material makes a slithering sound.

“Wait, shouldn’t you…not?”

“No? Well, I’m going to.”

“But, uh, germs—”

“Oh, no, too late!”

Sehyoon emerges from Byeongkwan’s embrace with a happy flush. He holds out an empty potato chip bag.

“Wait, sign this. It says I have no legal responsibility if you catch cleaning disease.”

Byeongkwan snorts. He takes the bag and quirks his thumb over it as if clicking an invisible pen.

“Oh, is that what you have? Cleaning disease?” He looks around at the dorm, still wrecked except for the way the laundry piles have been lovingly separated from the trash piles. “It’s a mild case if so. I think you’re going to pull through.”

Sehyoon smiles sweetly and swipes some dust from the top of a nearby cabinet. Byeongkwan crumples the bag into a tight ball and bounces it lightly off Sehyoon’s head.

“This hyung is too cute.”

Byeongkwan turns toward the door. Sehyoon pretends to remember the thing he’s been meaning to say.

“Wait.”

“Hm?”

“Before you go, listen—go easy on Junhee, okay?”

Byeongkwan wiggles the doorknob and rocks on his ankles, revolving reluctantly back into the conversation.

“What? Hyung, I’m late.”

Sehyoon tilts his head, trying to exert the smothering force of perfect, angelic patience.

“No, you’re not,” he says with a smile. “Take one minute to listen to me.”

Byeongkwan crosses his arms and puts all his weight on his back foot. His hip floats at an restless angle under his hand.

“Easy? On Junhee-hyung? He’s having the time of his life.”

Sehyoon hums. He draws a small crescent moon with the tip of his nose in an ambivalent head-shake.

“Be careful not to wear him out, okay? This Yuchan thing, I think it’s good, really, I just…the kid might not know the limits yet. You should watch him, you should watch them both.” Slightly winded from making his point in such detail, Sehyoon’s dips his head into a firm nod, concluding: “Yeah.”

Byeongkwan’s eyes rove between the corners of the room.

“Shouldn’t you watch them if you’re so worried? I know what I’m doing.”

Sehyoon clamps his lower lip between his teeth before the laugh escapes.

“I believe you think you know what you’re doing. But I don’t want…you know there have been problems before. Be careful.”

Byeongkwan’s cheeks hollow with annoyance. He considers his vast superiority over Junhee’s previous doms a point of pride. He doesn’t like the implication that he could repeat those mistakes.

“Don’t be jealous,” he retorts. His eyebrow rises; his voice is soft and lilting, like the ribbon on a ruffled silk cuff. Sehyoon feels a squeeze in his throat.

_I’m not jealous,_ he thinks. _Why don’t you just move back in with me?_

“Ah, but you like me jealous,” he says. “Don’t pretend.”

Byeongkwan drops the pleasant tension as rudely as a toy he no longer wants. He smiles casually and bounces one shoulder in a shrug.

“Be jealous, then. But I love you.” He uncoils his arms to turn the doorknob in earnest. “I’m going. Back soon. Drink your water.”

Sehyoon sloshes the bottle around affirmatively at Byeongkwan’s back, then at the latching door.


	13. (chapter guide)

This is a work about kink, kink discovery (primarily blood kink w/ some sadism mixed in), and kink coaching in a part-gay-found-family-part-polycule, so there's a pretty wide range of pairings and tones (if I wasn't trying to make it have some kind of plot throughout I would've just done a series tbh). There are porn chapters, fluffier/more emotional chapters, and chapters that have some of both. If you want to read for certain pairings or bdsm a.c.e porn with less of the feelings, here are some ways you can pick which chapters you want to read.

**chapters by smut-to-fluff ratio:**  
smuttier - [1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/50927020) | [2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/50944819) | [6](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/56577319) | [10](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67970203) | [11](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67970581)  
50/50 - [3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/50948857) | [4](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/51918235) | [7](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/56577538) | [8](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67969501)  
fluffier (note: these are still nsfw) - [5](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/56577013) | [9](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67969795) | [deleted scene](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67971100)

**chapters by pairing:**  
dongchan - [2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/50944819) | [8](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67969501) | [10](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67970203) | [11](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67970581)  
dongjun - [5](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/56577013)| [9](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67969795)  
sehdong - [7](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/56577538) | [8](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67969501)  
sehjun - [3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/50948857)  
junkwan - [1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/50927020) | 6  
junchan - [6](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/56577319) | [9](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67969795)  
jun/chan/kwan - [6](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/56577319)  
jun/all - [10](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67970203)  
chankwan - [4](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/51918235)  
wowkwan - [10](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67970203) | [deleted scene](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379105/chapters/67971100)

**content warnings:**

Ongoing consent within certain boundaries as part of everyone’s relationship is assumed here! but since it’s bdsm there will be moments where they hurt each other/act aggressive so please take care as you read!

Other than that, some common CWs that come to mind are food, gun violence mention (pretend/movie), alcohol (7), homophobia mention (7, 9), smoking (9), mention of a previous unhealthy relationship (8, 9), needles (11). There are a few sensitive topics covered and though I tried to be cautious with most things this list may expand or change.

Thanks so much for reading <3


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